LIBRARY DF CONGRESS. 

3iz 




UNITED STATfeftTP/AMERICA. 






%ACAULAY'S 
ESSAY ON LORD CLIVE. 



EDITED BY 

VIDA D. SCUDDER. 

Wellesley College. 



■Clive it was gave England India." — Browning. 




LEACH, SHEWELL, & SANBORN. 
BOSTON AND NEW YORK. 



^^ 






Copyright, 18S9, 
By Leach, Shewell, & Sanborn. 



C. J. PETERS & SON, 

Typographers and Electrotypers, 

145 High Street, Boston. 



PREFACE. 



The style of Macaulay affords peculiar advantages as 
an instrument of literary training for young students ; 
and it is with wisdom that the Association of New 
England Colleges demands from every matriculate famil- 
iarity with the characteristic and brilliant essay on 
Lord Clive. The present edition aims to supply such 
help as will make the essay most thoroughly useful to 
students of literature. It is as literature, not as history, 
that the essay is required; and as literature, not as 
history, it has here been treated. Exhaustive historical 
annotations would have doubled the size of the volume : 
minor allusions have therefore been disregarded on the 
one hand ; while on the other, little attention has been 
paid to such references as can be found in an ordinary 
encyclopsedia. Those who seek in the essay primarily a 
study of the history of India are recommended to the 
excellent edition of Mr. Courthope Bowen, which is 
furnished with an elaborate historical introduction and 
with copious notes. Many of Mr. Courthope Bowen's 



iv PREFACE. 

notes have been borrowed in this volume, and are fol- 
lowed by the initials " C. B." The essay, however, 
richly repays study as a piece of pure literature ; and 
the object of this edition will be attained if the student 
is put by it into intelligent and discriminating sympathy 
with the work of one of the masters of English prose. 

May, 1889. 



CONTENTS. 



Chief Facts in the Life of Macaulay vi 

Biographical Sketch: Mac axil ay the Man .... 1 

Six Famous Essays on English History, by Macaulay 5 

Macaulay the Writer 6 

Hints on the Handling of an Essay 10 

Lord Clive 13 

Introduction to Notes 129 

Notes 131 



CHIEF FACTS IN MACAULAY'S LIFE. 



Birth, October 25, 1800. 

Admission to Cambridge, 1818. 

Connection with Edinburgh Keview, 1825-1844. 

Entrance to Parliament, 1830. 

Speeches on Reform Bill, 1831. 

Membership in Supreme Council of India, 1833. 

Marriage of Sister, 1834. 

Publication of Indian Penal Code, 1837. 

Return to England, 1838. 

Secretaryship of War, 1839. 

Loss of Seat in Parliament, 1847. 

Publication of First Part of History, 1848. 

Failure in Health, 1852. 

Elevation to Peerage, 1857. 

Death, December 28, 1859. 



VI 



MACAULAY. 



BIOGEAPHICAL SKETCH. 

MACAULAY THE MAN. 

It is a pleasure to write of a career and a nature so whole- 
some, happy and sound as those of Thomas Babington 
IMacaulay. Few men of genius have ever been born in so 
precisely the age and country where their special powers 
could develop with least friction and most complete effect. 
Macaulay's birth-year was the birth-year of the century. 
During his mature life, England was passing through a reac- 
tion from the imgoverned emotional sti*ain of the revolutionary 
time. She had become practical, and sought to reach her ends 
through constitutional reforms and discussions in Parliament. 
Of this practical, sensible, cool-headed phase of her history, 
Macaulay was an excellent representative. There was no 
passion in his life ; there was little sadness ; there was no 
struggle, beyond that implied in an honorable, successful, and 
constant activity. In inheritance, in training, in the environ- 
ment and circumstances of life, above all in his own character, 
he was singularly fortunate. And he knew it. He never be- 
moaned the past, like Carlyle, nor sighed for the future, like 
Shelley. He was at home in his own generation ; and outward 
fame continually growing, and inward peace almost unbroken, 
sum up his bright and useful years. 

His inheritance was admirable. Zachary Macaulay, his 
father, was a man who would have delighted Carlyle: a 

1 



2 MACAULAT. 

silent man, rugged in his integrity, unflinching in his religious 
zeal. One of the most active promoters of the abolition of the 
slave-trade, his affiliations were with men who approached 
public questions with deep interest from the moral side ; and 
the young Macaulay was thus from childhood brought out of 
the narrow circle of his own boyish natiu'e, and taught to fling 
himself with keen intensity into the broad life of the nation. 
His mother was a wise, warm-hearted woman ; and a crowd 
of younger brothers and sisters completed a home which 
roused a passionate devotion in Macaulay when he was a child, 
and developed in him a deep and sunny domestic aff"ection, 
that clung to him through his life. He was never allowed to 
suspect that he was in the least diff'erent from other children : 
that to say " Thank you, madam, the agony is abated," when 
hot coffee was spilled on his small legs, was an unusual form 
of rejoinder for a little boy ; or, that there was anything excep- 
tional in writing a Universal History at the age of six. Per- 
fectly modest and merry, he passed a bright childhood. He 
received the conventional training of the young Englishman, 
at school and in the University. He did not take honors at 
Cambridge, because he hated mathematics ; but he made many 
friends, and distinguished himself for his talk and general 
powers. 

The year 1824 was the turning-point of his life, and marks 
the beginning of his active work. In this year, he took a 
fellowship at Trinity ; and in this year, his father's business 
losses threw on Macaulay the burden of heavy debts, and 
the support of his brothers and sisters. He assumed the 
burden with simple and ready cheer; carried it easily, and 
before he was forty had met all his obligations and amassed 
a small fortune. In the following year, 1825, began his con- 
nection with the Edinburgh Review, — a connection unbroken 
for nearly twenty years. His famous article on Milton, writ- 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 3 

ten at this time, at once made him known all over England as a 
young man of brilliant promise. When only thirty, he was sit- 
ting in Parliament, vehemently devoted to Whig principles, 
and winning for himself a great name as an orator, by his 
eloquence and sound common sense in the great Reform Bill 
debate of 1832, Plunged heart and soul into the excitement 
of politics, he yet found time to mingle freely with the most 
brilliant London society, to do much official work, and to write 
many of his best-known essays , In 1834 he accepted a lucra- 
tive position in India : and there he spent four years with a 
favorite sister, during which he read and wrote prodigiously, 
drew up a penal code, a monument of legislation, and saved a 
fortune large enough to secure his comfort for the rest of his 
life. He came home, and passed from honor to honor. Twice 
he sat in the Cabinet ; all over England he was famous as states- 
man and orator. When he retired fi^om politics in 1847, it was 
in order to be free for that History of England which was 
greeted on its publication by a tumult of applause. Finally, 
in 1857, he was given a peerage ; and he enjoyed it with the 
same unaffected and dignified complacency with which he wel- 
comed every honor of his long career. His external life was 
happy in private as in public. He never married : simply — 
we have his word for it — because he never fell in love ; but 
in his devotion to his little nieces and nephews, he showered 
forth all the warm and tender sweetness of his nature. 
Friends abounded. He was rich, was contented with London, 
and London life. Above all, even the omnivorous appetite of 
a Macaulay could not devour all the books in the world ; and 
as long as any books remained unread — Latin, Greek, French, 
German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian — life would have re- 
tained for him an undiramed interest. Happy, and what is 
rarer, knowing that he was happy ; famous, honored, and 
beloved ; — Macaulay passed the latter part of his life in a 



4 MACAULAY. 

peaceful retirement, sank in quiet fortitude through years of 
distressing but not enfeebling illness, and finally died without 
warning on the 28th of December, 1859. Two months before, 
he had written: "October 25, 1859. My birthday. I am 
fifty-nine years old. Well, I have had a happy life. I do not 
know that any one whom I have seen close has had a happier." 

The current of his inner life, like that of his outer, was 
smooth. He had a sunshiny temperament, affectionate, with no 
touch of unrest. He was generous and modest. His devotion 
to those he loved was complete. His unflinching sense of 
honor was of that highest type which is utterly free from self- 
consciousness. He voted for a measure which would make 
him jDcnniless ; he resigned his position in Parliament, rather 
than hurt his father's feelings; while in India, he pleaded 
nobly for the freedom of the press, at a time when the news- 
papers of the country were bespattering him with foul abuse : 
and in all these crises he took his own behavior simply for 
granted. It was easy for Macaulay to be good. He never 
had any doubts, speculative or practical. He always knew 
exactly what he ought to do, and he always did it. He was 
always quite sure of what he believed ; and anything that he 
could not make up his mind about, he decided was not worth 
his thoughts. ISTo wonder that he was a happy man. 

One is glad to be able to say of a man eminent for his 
literary work, that his moral nature was even greater than his 
intellectual ; and this we may say of Macaulay. So far as 
intellect goes, he cannot be called an original thinker. He 
could not be, for he never stopped to think. When he was 
taking a walk, he read ; when he was on shipboard, he read ; 
when he was in trouble, he read ; when he was happy, he read ; 
and when he had no book in his hand, he repeated books out 
of his memory. So he had no time to let his own mind work, 
and took all his opinions as he found them ready made for him 



BIOGBAPHICAL SKETCH. ' 5 

in books, and determined by his temperament. It is curious 
to compare his letters with those of a man like Carlyle and to 
see how exclusively Macaulay confines himself to giving the 
news. He never discusses a subject, though he occasionally 
announces a view. !N'either the profoundly imaginative nor 
the profoundly speculative nature could bear such a life as his. 
But his lack of originality made it all the easier for him to 
produce a great quantity of excellent and valuable work. He 
had a wonderful memory, unfailing industry, a vivid concep- 
tion of the past and a unique style ; and he was thoroughly 
interested in his subject. He said the things that most intelli- 
gent people thought, so eloquently and incisively that they 
began at once to pride themselves on their own cleverness. 
He achieved his ambition; he wrote a History of England, 
which for a time sujDplanted the novel on every drawing-room 
table. He did more than this : for he made the past real to us, 
and he impressed his style with ineffaceable force on the Eng- 
lish of his century. Wonderfully popular during his life, 
there was a tendency to speak lightly of Macaulay, for some 
time after his death. The re-action has worn itself out, and 
we are ready at last to recognize his real and great value. 
We do not blame Xenophon because he is not Thucydides, nor 
Macaulay because he is not Carlyle. 

SIX FAMOUS ESSAYS ON ENGLISH HISTORY, BY 
MACAULAY. 

Milton. Published in 1825. 

Hallasi's Constitutional History. Published in 1828. 

Sir William Temple. Published in 1838. 

Chatham. Published in 1844. 

Lord Clive. Published in 1840. 

Warren Hastings. Published in 1841. 



MAC A UL AT. 



MACAULAY THE WRITER. 



If we have rightly understood the character of IMacaulay, 
we can almost j^redict the qualities of his style. For style is 
not arbitrary and mechanical, nor is it the result of conscious 
effort. The succession of sounds, the cadence of sentences, 
the diction ; far more, the choice of figures and incidents, the 
grouping and general tone, — all these are, like the perfume 
of the flower, the spontaneous and necessary exiDression of 
that nature from which they spring. 

The first note of Macaulay's style is, then, the same which 
we have f omid in his life : it is the note of certainty. He 
knows exactly what he wants to say, and he says it with entire 
assurance. Whether he has to describe a man, a j)olicy, or a 
battle, his touch is firm and sti'ong. His subject never runs 
away with him. This power of quiet and masterly control is 
visible in the whole scope and trend of his art. An essay 
sweeps onward, and we grasp its complex thought with ease : 
"Beneath the smooth and polished surface, Isijev mider layer 
may be seen of subordinate narratives, crossing and interla- 
cing each other, like the parts in the score of an oratorio. And 
this complexity results, not in confusion, but in the most admir- 
able clearness and unity of effect" — (Cotter Morrison). 
Again, the power is shown in the portraj^al of character, on 
however small a canvas. The vignette of Surajah Dowlah in 
the Essay on Clive, is an excellent example. Above all, it is 
visible in the very turn and sequence of phrase ; in the regular 
beat of the sentence, in clear-cut antithesis, in swift climax, 
in sonorous and firmly built period. The antithetical or bal- 
anced sentence is the form most characteristic of Macaulay. 
« Yes, mamma, industry shall be my bread, and attention my 
butter," he said to his mother on first starting for school when 
he was a tiny fellow ; and the sentence, which in form might 



BIOGBAPHICAL SKETCH. 7 

come straight from the History of England, shows the truth of 
our statement that style is born in a man, not added to him. 
Xow the antithetical form comes fi'om a mind which expresses 
itself incisively because it sees certainly. It was the assurance 
with which Macaulay classified his ideas, that enabled him to 
put them over against each other with an unfailing regularity 
which sometimes becomes tedious. He may not suggest much 
to the imagination, but he gives it a great deal, as much as he 
sees himself. 

And the occasional monotony of his style is largely relieved 
by another quality : the vividness of his conception of the past. 
It has been said that at the very time when history was tending 
to become scientific and philosojohical — that is. to accumulate 
facts and study causes — Macaulay was recalling it to the 
personal and the picturesque. He could not render us a 
greater service. Hastening through space in every direction 
are the light rays, which have left the earth through all the 
ages of the past. Each ray carries with it the constant in- 
effaceable image, clear as when first it met the eye of man, of 
the scene which was taking place at its departure. Still Leon- 
idas defends the pass of Thermopylte ; still young Raleigh, 
with courtly grace, flings his cloak before Elizabeth; still 
Napoleon surveys the field of Elba. Across these rays, 
Macaulay seems to project his spirit ; and he sees the pano- 
rama of the past. One by one, he retraces their path of light ; 
and the vision of events*-as they actually follow each other is 
unrolled before him. On this magic journey he takes us with 
him. He shows us all the actions of men; the battlefield, 
the council-chamber, the secret plot. He does not philoso- 
phize ; he does not discuss. He does not, at his best, analyze 
men's passions, nor unveil the secrets of their heart. He de- 
picts; and herein lies his best power. Who can read the 
description of the Black Hole, of the Battle of Plassey, and 



8 MACAULAY. 

not be aware that something is added to his personal experi- 
ence ? He does not indeed feel, as Carlyle would make him 
feel, that he himself has fought the battle, or suffocated in 
that horrid heat ; but he does feel that he has been a spectator 
of it all, has heard the blare of the trumpets, and seen the sur- 
vivors stagger from their dungeon. This peculiar vividness 
of mind is seen in other ways as well as in direct description. 
It is shown in the wonderful wealth of imagery that makes 
Macaulay's earlier style fairly blaze with simile and metaphor, 
and in the more legitimate and equally effective device by 
which past and fjresent, near and far, are constantly made to 
illustrate each other. The power to see pictures, and make us 
see them, is to the historian a primary requisite ; and few his- 
torians have possessed it to as great a degree as Macaulay. 

One other characteristic, desirable and somewhat unusual, 
his style emphatically possesses. It is not only assured and 
vivid ; it is also swift. This quality springs in great measure 
from Macaulay's practice as an orator. A speech must " go," 
or it is a dead failure. However involved the theme, however 
minute the setting, the effect of a successful oration must be 
one of rush and force. This effect, when transferred from the 
oration to the printed page, is of the greatest value. It re- 
moves the heavy or languid movement too frequent in essay 
and history, and keeps the attention constantly on the alert. 
Macaulay's essays are dignified in method and elaborate in 
structure : yet they always carry with them the business-like 
sense, that we are getting on as quickly as we can. Some 
small points may be sacrificed, a fine shade may be lost here 
and there ; but on the whole the spirited sweep and rapid vigor 
of the delineation more than compensate to the average reader 
for any omissions. Moreover, public speaking trains to an 
unusual explicitness. Everything said must be understood at 
the first hearing ; so the orator becomes accustomed to express* 



BIOGBAPHICAL SKETCH. 9 

ing himself with a clearness so absolute, that the stupidest 
reader cannot fail to see what he means. Thus Macaulay's 
style may be read with absolute ease, not only from the swift- 
ness, but also from the clearness of its movement. 

Definite handling, picturesque conception, and quick, clear 
movement mark, then, the famous style of Macaulay. More 
technical points, such as the quality of his diction and the method 
of his sentence-structure, the student may well be left to discover 
for himself. The qualities which have been described are no- 
where more fully exemplified than in this essay on Lord Clive. 
A military subject called forth all the brightness of Macau- 
lay's powers. The character of Clive was one which he could 
understand at a glance ; it presented an initial paradox to ex- 
plain, and a false view to combat, and such a union was always 
particularly attractive to him. Moreover, the magnitude of 
the interests involved, and the pomp of the setting, had for 
him something the same fascination which they had for Burke. 
We may say in his own words: — "Hindostan, with its vast 
cities, its gorgeous pagodas, its long-descended dynasties, its 
stately etiquette, excited in a mind so capacious, so imaginative, 
and so susceptible, the most intense interest." The interest of 
Macaulay, however, unlike that of Burke, was chiefly aroused 
by the contrast between this gorgeous but languid civilization 
and the force, despatch, and good sense of the statesman and 
general from the West ; and this contrast is admirably brought 
out by him. Take it all in all, this essay, for intrinsic value 
of subject and spirited ease of handling, is among the very 
best of his wiitings. 



HINTS ON THE HANDLING OF AN ESSAY. 



An essay is the presentation, in literary form, of a 
single phase of thought, dream, or fact. The phase 
may be simple or complex, but it must be one. 

An essay may, then, be meditative, like Bacon's " On 
Studies;" or fanciful, like Lamb's "Dream-Children;" 
or narrative, like Macaulay's " Lord Clive " and " Warren 
Hastings ; " or controversial, as almost any article on 
politics or theology in the current magazines. The 
critical essay is, of course, that form of the meditative 
essay which takes the thought or art of some one else 
for its theme ; while the scientific essay comes under the 
head of fact. 

It is obviously difficult to find any one principle of 
treatment, specific enough to be of value, which shall 
cover these different forms. We do not assuredly wish 
to approach in the same spirit or by the same method, 
Lamb when he talks of Roast Pig, Emerson when he 
reflects on Compensation, and the modern economist 
when he argues about Free Trade. Of all literary forms, 
the essay is least definite in its governing rules, most 
readily moulded by the progressive instinct of the 
writer. The poet must abide by his own self-chosen 
laws ; the orator, by the necessary limit of time, and the 
scientific principles of persuasion. But the essayist is 

10 



HINTS OK THE HANDLING OF AN ESSAY. 11 

in no wise bound. He may meander on at liis pleasure 
with a gentle and leisurely grace ; he may string to- 
gether a succession of disconnected, scintillating epi- 
grams ; or he may march his embattled phalanxes in 
double-quick movement to action. The essay is free, 
and in this freedom lies alike the secret of its charm 
and of its danger. In the hands of a strong mau, who 
can safely abandon himself to the spontaneous swing of 
his nature, it has a peculiar, intimate, unstudied charm, 
and is at times noble ; but in the hands of a weak man, 
it becomes loose, disconnected, and weak. More clearly, 
perhaps, than any other form, it reveals the native 
power of the author. 

The only canon of study which we can lay down is a 
very simple one. It is, to ask what the author has tried 
to do ; how far, and in what way, he has succeeded ; in 
what respects, if in any, he has failed. Of definite 
structure-analysis comparatively little can be done, 
though there are, of course, cases where it is rewarding. 
But the essay, like every form of art, must have some- 
where a central unity, however slight and imperceptible. 
Conscious purpose it need not have ; but an unconscious 
unity of result it must present. The thoughts may be 
scattered, but they must all have some relation to an 
unseen centre. 

We have in this volume an example of the narrative 
or historical essay. Macaulay himself describes for us 
the way in which he thinks that this form of essay 
differs from history proper. He writes to Napier, who 
had accused him of using too familiar a style : — "I did 



12 MACAULAY. 

not mean my article to be uniformly serious and earnest. 
... I conceive tliat this sort of composition has its own 
character and its own laws. I do not claim the honor 
of having invented it, that praise belongs to Southey ; 
but I may say that I have in some points improved 
upon his design. The manner of these little historical 
essays bears, I think, the same analogy to the manner of 
Tacitus or Gibbon, which the manner of Ariosto bears 
to the manner of Tasso. . . . Ariosto, when he is grave 
and pathetic, is as grave and pathetic as Tasso ; but he 
often takes a light, fleeting tone, which suits him admir- 
ably, but which in Tasso would be quite out of place. . . . 
So with these historical articles. When the subject re- 
quires it they may rise, if the author can manage it, to 
the highest altitudes of Thucydides. Then, again, they 
may without impropriety sink to the levity and colloquial 
ease of Horace Walpole's letters. This is my theory." 

The historical essay must, then, be flexible, and may 
be light in tone. It should, we may add, be constructed 
in some respects like a story. Serious history can re- 
ceive in detail, but hardly as a whole, dramatic elements ; 
but such elements should control the treatment of the 
short historical essay. It must be, not a fragment 
chopped out of a larger history, but an organic whole. 
The action should clearly sweep onward to a crisis, and 
there should be a centre of interest. This centre may 
be either a general theme or an individual man. If a 
theme, the interest will be wider; if a man, more in- 
tense. In the case of the essay on Lord Clive, the two 
co-exist, and are most happily united. 



LORD CLIVE.i 



10 



We have always thought it strange that, while the 
history of the Spanish empire in America is • familiarly 
known to all the nations of Europe, the great actions of 
our countrymen in the East should, even among our- 
selves, excite little interest. Every schoolboy knows 
who imprisoned Montezuma, and who strangled Ata- 
hualpa. But we doubt whether one in ten, even among 
English gentlemen of highly cultivated minds, can tell 
who won the battle of Buxar, who perpetrated the mas- 
sacre of Patna, whether Surajah Dowlah ruled in Oude 
or in Travancore, or whether Holkar was a Hindoo or a 
Mussulman. Yet the victories of Cortes were gained 
over savages who had no letters ; who were ignorant of 
the use of metals ; who had not broken in a single animal 
to labor; who wielded no better weapons than those 15 
which could be made out of sticks, flints, and fish-bones ; 
who regarded a horse-soldier as a monster, half man and 
half beast ; who took a harquebusier for a sorcerer, able 
to scatter the thunder and lightning of the skies. The 
people of India, when we subdued them, were ten times 

* "The Life of Robert Lord Clive; collected from the Family- 
Papers communicated by the Earl of Powis." By Major-GeneraIi 
Sir John Malcolm, K.C.B. 3 vols. 8vo. London, 1836. 

13 



14 MACAULAY. 

as numerous as the Americans whom the Spaniards van- 
quished, and were at the same time quite as highly civ- 
ilized as the victorious Spaniards. They had reared 
cities larger and fairer than Saragossa or Toledo, and 
5 buildings more beautiful and costly than the cathedral 
of Seville. They could show bankers richer than the 
richest firms of Barcelona or Cadiz, viceroys whose 
splendor far surpassed that of Ferdinand the Catholic, 
myriads of cavalry and long trains of artillery which 

10 would have astonished the Great Captain. It might 
have been expected, that every Englishman who takes 
any interest in any part of history would be curious to 
know how a handful of his countrymen, separated from 
their home by an immense ocean, subjugated in the 

15 course of a few years one of the greatest empires in the 

world. Yet, unless we greatly err, this subject is, to 

most readers, not only insipid but positively distasteful. 

Perhaps the fault lies partly with the historians. Mr. 

Mill's book, though it has undoubtedly great and rare 

20 merit, is not sufficiently animated and picturesque to 
attract those who read for amusement. Orme, inferior 
to no English historian in style and power of painting, 
is minute even to tediousness. In one volume he allots, 
on an average, a closely printed quarto page to the 

25 events of every forty-eight hours. The consequence is, 
that his narrative, though one of the most authentic and 
one of the most finely written in our language, has never 
been very popular, and is now scarcely ever read. 

We fear that the volumes before us will not much 
attract those readers whom Orme and Mill have repelled. 



LOEB CLIVE. 16 

The materials placed at the disposal of Sir John Mal- 
colm by the late Lord Powis were indeed of great value. 
But we cannot say that they have been very skilfully 
worked up. It would, however, be unjust to criticise 
with severity a work which, if the author had lived to 5 
complete and revise it, would probably have been im- 
proved by condensation and by a better arrangement. 
We are more disposed to perform the pleasing duty of 
expressing our gratitude to the noble family to which 
the public owes so much useful and curious information. 10 

The effect of the book, even when we make the largest 
allowance for the partiality of those who have furnished 
and of those who have digested the materials, is, on the 
whole, greatly to raise the character of Lord Clive. We 
are far indeed from sympathizing with Sir John Malcolm, 15 
whose love passes the love of biographers, and who can 
see nothing but wisdom and justice in the actions of his 
idol. But we are at least equally far from concurring in 
the severe judgment of Mr. Mill, who seems to us to show 
less discrimination in his account of Clive than in any 20 
other part of his valuable work. Clive, like most men 
who are born with strong passions, and tried by strong 
temptations, committed great faults. But every person 
who takes a fair and enlightened view of his whole 
career must admit that our island, so fertile in heroes 25 
and statesmen, has scarcely ever produced a man more 
truly great either in arms or in council. 

The Clives had been settled, ever since the twelfth 
century, on an estate of no great vaJue, near Market- 
Drayton, in Shropshire. In the reign of George the 



16 MACAULAY. 

First, this moderate but ancient inheritance was pos- 
sessed by Mr. Richard Clive, who seems to have been a 
plain man of no great tact or capacity. He had been 
bred to the law, and divided his time between profes- 
5 sional business and the avocations of a small proprietor. 
He married a lady from Manchester, of the name of 
G-askill, and became the father of a very numerous 
family. His eldest son, Eobert, the founder of the 
British empire in India, was born at the old seat of his 

10 ancestors on the twenty-ninth of September, 1725. 

Some lineaments of the character of the man were 
early discerned in the child. There remain letters 
written by his relations when he was in his seventh 
year; and from these letters it appears that, even at 

15 this early age, his strong will and his fiery passions, 
sustained by a constitutional intrepidity which some- 
times seemed hardly compatible with soundness of mind, 
had begun to cause great uneasiness to his family. 
" Fighting," says one of his uncles, " to which he is out 

20 of measure addicted, gives his temper such a fierceness 
and imperiousness, that he flies out on every trifling 
occasion." The old people of the neighborhood still 
remember to have heard from their parents how Bob 
Clive climbed to the top of the lofty steeple of Market- 

^5 Drayton, and with what terror the inhabitants saw him 
seated on a stone spout near the summit. They also 
relate how he formed all the idle lads of the town into a 
kind of predatory army, and compelled the shopkeepers 
to submit to a tribute of apples and halfpence, in consid- 
eration of which he guaranteed the security of their 



LOBB CLIVE. 17 

windows. He was sent from school to school, making 
very little progress in his learning, and gaining for him- 
self everywhere the character of an exceedingly naughty 
boy. One of his masters, it is said, was sagacious enough 
to prophesy that the idle lad would make a great figure 5 
in the world. But the general opinion seems to have 
been that poor Eobert was a dunce, if not a reprobate. 
His family expected nothing good from such slender 
parts and such a headstrong temper. It is not strange, 
therefore, that they gladly accepted for him, when he 10 
was in his eighteenth year, a writership in the service of 
the East India Company, and shipped him off to make a 
fortune or to die of a fever at Madras. 

Far different were the prospects of Clive from those of 
the youths whom the East India College now annually 15 
sends to the Presidencies of our Asiatic empire. The 
Company was then purely a trading corporation. Its 
territory consisted of a few square miles, for which rent 
was paid to the native governments. Its troops were 
scarcely numerous enough to man the batteries of three 20 
or four ill-constructed forts, which had been erected for 
the protection of the warehouses. The natives, who 
composed a considerable part of these little garrisons, 
had not yet been trained in the discipline of Europe, 
and were armed, some with swords and shields, some 25 
with bows and arrows. The business of the servant of 
the Company was not, as now, to conduct the judicial, 
financial, and diplomatic business of a great country ; but 
to take stock, to make advances to weavers, to ship 
cargoes, and above all to keep an eye on private traders 



18 MACAULAT. 

who dared to infringe the monopoly. The younger 
clerks were so miserably paid that they could scarcely 
subsist without incurring debt ; the elder enriched them- 
selves by trading on their own account ; and those who 

5 lived to rise to the top of the service often accumulated 
considerable fortunes. 

Madras, to which Clive had been appointed, was, at 
this time, perhaps, the first in importance of the Com- 
pany's settlements. In the preceding century, Eort St. 

10 George had arisen on a barren spot beaten by a raging 
surf; and in the neighborhood a town, inhabited by 
many thousand of natives, had sprung up, 'as towns 
spring up in the East, with the rapidity of the prophet's 
gourd. There were already in the suburbs many white 

15 villas, each surrounded by its garden, whither the 
wealthy agents of the Company retired, after the 
labors of the desk and the warehouse, to enjoy- the 
cool breeze which springs up at sunset from the Bay of 
Bengal. The habits of these mercantile grandees appear 

20 to have been more profuse, luxurious, and ostentatious, 
than those of the high judicial and political functionaries 
who have succeeded them. But comfort was far less 
understood. Many devices which now mitigate the heat 
of the climate, preserve health, and prolong life, were 

25 unknown. There was far less intercourse with Europe 
than at present. The voyage by the Cape, which in our 
time has often been performed within three months, was 
then very seldom accomplished in six, and was some- 
times protracted to more than a year. Consequently, 
the Anglo-Indian was then much more estranged from 



LOUB CLIVE. 19 

his country, miicli more addicted to Oriental usages, 
and much, less fitted to mix in society after his re- 
turn to Europe, than the Anglo-Indian of the present 
day. 

Within the fort and its precinct, the English exer- 5 
cised, by permission of the native government, an ex- 
tensive authority, such as every great Indian landowner 
exercised within his own domain. But they had never 
dreamed of claiming independent power. The surround- 
ing country was ruled by the Nabob of the Carnatic, a 10 
deputy of the Viceroy of the Deccan, commonly called 
the Nizam, who was himself only a deputy of the mighty 
prince designated by our ancestors as the Great Mogul. 
Those names, once so august and formidable, still remain. 
There is still a Nabob of the Carnatic, who lives on a 35 
pension alloAved to him by the English out of the reve- 
nues of the pro mice which his ancestors ruled. There 
is still a Nizam, whose capital is overawed by a British 
cantonment, and to whom a British resident gives, under" 
the name of advice, commands which are not to be dis- 20 
puted. There is still a Mogul, who is permitted to play 
at holding courts and receiving petitions, but who has 
less power to help or hurt than the youngest civil servant 
of the Company. 

Clive's voyage was unusually tedious even for that age. 25 
The ship remained some months at the Brazils, where 
the young adventurer picked up some knowledge of 
Portuguese, and spent all his pocket-money. He did 
not arrive in India till more than a year after he had 
left England. His situation at Madras was most painful. 



20 MACAULAY. 

His funds were exhausted. His pay was small. He had 
contracted debts. He was wretchedly lodged, no small 
calamity in a climate which can be made tolerable to an 
European only by spacious and well-placed apartments. 

5 He had been furnished with letters of recommendation 
to a gentleman who might have assisted him ; but when 
he landed at Fort St. George he found that this gentle- 
man had sailed for England. The lad's shy and haughty 
disposition withheld him from introducing himself to 

10 strangers. He was several months in India before he 
became acquainted with a single family. The climate 
affected his health and spirits. His duties were of a 
kind ill suited to his ardent and daring character. He 
pined for his home, and in his letters to his relations 

15 expressed his feelings in language softer and more pen- 
sive than we should have expected either from the way- 
wardness of his boyhood, or from the inflexible sternness 
of his later years. "I have not enjoyed," says he, "one 
happy day since I left my native country ; '' and again, 

20 " I must confess, at intervals, when I think of my dear 
native England, it affects me in a very particular manner. 
.... If I should be so far blest as to revisit again my 
own country, but more especially Manchester, the centre 
of all my wishes, all that I could hope or desire for 

25 would be presented before me in one view." 

One solace he found of the most respectable kind. 
The G-overnor possessed a good library, and permitted 
Clive to have- access to it. The young man devoted 
much of his leisure to reading, and acquired at this time 
almost all the knowledge of books that he ever possessed. 



LORD CLIVE. 21 

As a boy lie had been too idle^ as a man lie soon became 
too busy, for literary pursuits. 

But neither climate nor j)overty, neither study nor the 
sorrows of a home-sick exile, could tame the desperate 
audacity of his spirit. He behaved to his oflB.cial supe- 5 
riors as he had behaved to his schoolmasters, and was 
several times in danger of losing his situation. Twice, 
while residing in the Writers' Buildings, he attempted 
to destroy himself; and twice the pistol which he 
snapped at his own head failed to go off. This circum- 10 
stance, it is said, affected him as a similar escape affected 
"VVallenstein. After satisfying himself that the pistol 
was really well loaded, he burst forth into an exclama- 
tion that surely he was reserved for something great. 

About this time an event which at first seemed likely 15 
to destroy all his hopes in life suddenly opened before 
him a new path to eminence. Europe had been, during 
some years, distracted by the war of the Austrian suc- 
cession. George the Second was the steady ally of 
Maria Theresa. The house of Bourbon took the oppo- 20 
site side. Though England was even then the first of 
maritime powers, she was not, as she has since become, 
more than a match on the sea for all the nations of the world 
together; and she found it difficult to maintain a contest 
against the united navies of Erance and Spain. In the 25 
eastern seas Erance obtained the ascendency. Labour- 
donnais, Governor of Mauritius, a man of eminent talents 
and virtues, conducted an expedition to the continent of 
India in spite of the opposition of the British fleet, 
landed, assembled an army, appeared before Madras, and 



22 MACAULAY. 

compelled the town and fort to capitulate. The keys 
were delivered up ; the French colors were displayed on 
Fort St. George; and the contents of the Company's 
warehouses were seized as prize of war by the con- 

5 querors. It was stipulated by the capitulation that the 
English inhabitants should be prisoners of war on parole, 
and that the town should remain in the hands of the 
French till it should be ransomed. Labourdonnais 
pledged his honor that only a modorate ransom should 

10 be required. 

But the success of Labourdonnais had awakened the 
jealousy of his countryman, Dupleix, Governor of Pon- 
di cherry. Dupleix, moreover, had already begun to 
revolve gigantic schemes, with which the restoration 

15 of Madras to the English was by no means compatible. 
He declared that Labourdonnais had gone beyond his 
powers ; that conquests made by the French arms on 
the continent of India were at the disposal of the Gov- 
ernor of Pondicherry alone ; and that Madras should be 

20 razed to the ground. Labourdonnais was compelled to 
yield. The anger which the breach of the capitulation 
excited among the English was increased by the ungen- 
erous manner in which Dupleix treated the principal 
servants of the Company. The Governor and several of 

25 the first gentlemen of Fort St. George were carried under 
a guard to Pondicherry, and conducted through the town 
in a triumphal procession, under the eyes of fifty thou- 
sand spectators. It was with reason thought that this 
gross violation of public faith absolved the inhabitants 
of Madras from the engagements into which they had 



LOBD CLIVE. 23 - 

entered with Laboiirdonnais. Clive fled from the town 
by night in the disguise of a Mussulman, and took 
refuge at Fort St. David, one of the small English set- 
tlements subordinate to Madras. 

The circumstances in which he was now placed natur- 5 
ally led him to adopt a profession better suited to his 
restless and intrepid spirit than the business of examin- 
ing packages and casting accounts. He solicited and 
obtained an ensign's commission in the service of the 
Company, and at twenty-one entered on his military 10 
career. His personal courage, of which he had, while 
still a writer, given, signal proof by a desperate duel 
with a military bully Avho was the terror of Fort St. 
David, speedily made him conspicuous even among hun- 
dreds of brave men. He soon began to show in his new 15 
calling other qualities which had not before been dis- 
cerned in him : judgment, sagacity, deference to legiti- 
mate authority. He distinguished himself highly in 
several operations against the French, and was particu- 
larly noticed by Major Lawrence, who was then con- 20 
sidered as the ablest British o£6.cer in India. 

Clive had been only a few months in the army when 
intelligence arrived that peace had been concluded be- 
tween Great Britain and France. Dupleix was in con- 
sequence compelled to restore Madras to the English 25 
Company ; and the young ensign was at liberty to 
resume his former business. He did indeed return for a 
short time to his desk. He again quitted it in order to 
assist Major Lawrence in some petty hostilities with the 
natives, and then again returned to it. While he was 



24 MACAU LAY. 

thus wavering between a military and a commercial life, 
events took place which, decided his choice. The politics 
of India assumed a new aspect. There was peace be- 
tween the English and French crowns ; but there arose 
5 between the English and French companies trading to 
the East a war most eventful and important, — a war in 
which the prize was nothing less than the magnificent 
inheritance of the house of Tamerlane. 

The empire which Baber and his Moguls reared in the 

10 sixteenth century was long one of the most extensive 
and splendid in the world. In no European kingdom 
was so large a population subject to a single prince, or 
so large a revenue poured into the treasury. The beauty 
and magnificence of the buildings erected by the sover- 

15 eigns of Hindoostan amazed even travellers who had 
seen St. Peter's. The innumerable retinues and gor- 
geous decorations which surrounded the throne of Delhi 
dazzled even eyes which were accustomed to the pomp 
of Versailles. Some of the great viceroys, who held 

20 their posts by virtue of commissions from the Mogul, 
ruled as many subjects as the King of France or the 
Emperor of Germany. Even the deputies of these depu- 
ties might well rank, as to extent of territory and 
amount of revenue, with the Grand Duke of Tuscany, or 

25 the Elector of Saxony. 

There can be little doubt that this great empire, 
powerful and prosperous as it appears on a superficial 
view, was yet, even in its best days, far worse governed 
than the worst governed parts of Europe now are. The 
administration was tainted with all the vices of Oriental 



LORD CLIVE. 25 

despotism, and with all the vices inseparable from the 
domination of race over race. The conflicting preten- 
sions of the princes of the royal house produced a long 
series of crimes and public disasters. Ambitious lieuten- 
ants of the sovereign sometimes aspired to independence. 5 
Fierce tribes of Hindoos, impatient of a foreign yoke, 
frequently withheld tribute, repelled the armies of the 
government from the mountain fastnesses, and poured 
down in arms on the cultivated plains. In spite, how- 
ever, of much constant maladmihistration, in spite of 10 
occasional convulsions which shook the whole frame of 
society, this great monarchy, on the whole, retained, 
during some generations, an outward appearance of 
unity, majesty, and energy. But, throughout the long 
reign of Aurungzebe, the state, notwithstanding all that 15 
the vigor and policy of the prince could effect, was 
hastening to dissolution. After his death, which took 
place in the year 1707, the ruin was fearfully rapid. 
Violent shocks from without co-operated with an incur- 
able decay which was fast proceeding within ; and in a 20 
few years the empire had undergone utter decomposi- 
tion. 

The history of the successors of Theodosius bears no 
small analogy to that of the successors of Aurungzebe. 
But perhaps the fall of the Carlovingians furnishes the 25 
nearest parallel to the fall of the Moguls. Charlemagne 
Avas scarcely interred when the imbecility and the dis- 
putes of his descendants began to bring contempt on 
themselves and destruction on their subjects. The wide 
dominion o'f the Franks was severed into a thousand 



26 MACAULAY, 

pieces. Nothing more than a nominal dignity was left 
to the abject heirs of an illustrious name, Charles the 
Bald, and Charles the Fat, and Charles the Simple. 
Fierce invaders, differing from each other in race, lan- 

5 guage, and religion, flocked, as if by concert, from the 
farthest corners of the earth, to plunder provinces which 
the government could no longer defend. The pixates of 
the Northern Sea extended their ravages from the Elbe 
to the Pyrenees, and at length fixed their seat in the 

10 rich valley of the Seine. The Hungarian, in whom the 
trembling monks fancied that they recognized the Gog 
or Magog of prophecy, carried back the plunder of the 
cities of Lombardy to the depths of the Pannonian 
forests. The Saracen ruled in Sicily, desolated the fer- 

15 tile plains of Campania, and spread terror even to the 
walls of Eome. In the midst of these sufferings, a great 
internal change passed upon the empire. The corrup- 
tion of death began to ferment into new forms of life. 
While the great body, as a whole, was torpid and passive, 

20 every separate member began to feel with a sense, and 
to move with an energy all its own. Just here, in the 
most barren and dreary tract of European history, all 
feudal privileges, all modern nobility, take their source. 
It is to this point that we trace the power of those 

25 princes who, nominally vassals, but really independent, 
long governed, with the titles of dukes, marquesses, and 
counts, almost every part of the dominions which had 
obeyed Charlemagne. 

Such or nearly such was the change which passed on 
the Mogul empire during the forty years which followed 



LOBB CLIVE. 27 

the death of Aurungzebe. A succession of nominal sov- 
ereigns, sunk in indolence and debauchery, sauntered 
away life in secluded palaces, chewing bang, fondling 
concubines, and listening to buffoons. A succession of 
ferocious invaders descended through the western passes, 5 
to prey on the defenceless wealth of Hindoostan. A 
Persian conqueror crossed the Indus, marched through 
the gates of Delhi, and bore away in triumph those 
treasures of which the magnificence had astounded Koe 
and Bernier : the Peacock Throne, on which the richest 10 
jewels of Golconda had been disposed by the most 
skilful hands of Europe ; and the inestimable Mountain 
of Light, which, after many strange vicissitudes, lately 
shone in the bracelet of Runjeet Sing, and is now des- 
tined to adorn the hideous idol of Orissa. The Afghan 15 
soon followed to complete the work of devastation which 
the Persian had begun. The warlike tribes of Eajpoo- 
tana threw off the Mussulman yoke. A band odf mer- 
cenary soldiers occupied Rohilcund." The Seiks ruled 
on the Indus. The Jauts spread dismay along the 20 
Jumna. The highlands which border on the western 
sea-coast of India poured forth a yet more formidable 
race, — a race which was long the terror of every native 
power, and which, after many desperate and doubtful 
struggles, yielded only to the fortune and genius of 25 
England. It was under tjie reign of Aurungzebe that 
this wild clan of plunderers first descended from their 
mountains ; and soon after his death, every corner of his 
wide empire learned to tremble at the mighty name of 
the Mahrattas. Many fertile vice-royalties were entirely 



28 MACAULAY. 

subdued by them. Their dominions stretched across 
the peninsula from sea to sea. Mahratta captains 
reigned at Poonah, at Gualior^ in Gruzerat, in Berar, and 
in Tan j ore. ISTor did they, though they had become 
5 great sovereigns, therefore cease to be freebooters. 
Tliey still retained the predatory habits of their fore- 
fathers. Every region which was not subject to their 
rule was wasted by their incursions. Wherever their 
kettle-drums were heard, the peasant threw his bag of 

10 rice on his shoulder, hid his small savings in his girdle, 
and fled with his wife and children to the mountains or 
the jungles, to the milder neighborhood of the hyena and 
the tiger. Many provinces redeemed their harvests by 
the payment of an annual ransom. Even the wretched 

15 phantom who still bore the imperial title stooped to pay 
this ignominious black-mail. The camp-fires of one 
rapacious leader were seen from the walls of the palace 
of Delhi. Another, at the head of his innumerable 
cavalry, descended year after year on the rice-fields of 

20 Bengal. Even the European factors trembled for their 
magazines. Less than a hundred years ago, it was 
thought necessary to fortify Calcutta against the horse- 
men of Berar ; and the name of the Mahratta ditch still 
preserves the memory of the danger. 

25 Wherever the viceroys of the Mogul retained authority 
they became sovereigns. They might still acknowledge 
in words the superiority of the house of Tamerlane ; as 
a Count of Elanders or a Duke of Burgundy might have 
acknowledged the superiority of the most helpless driv- 
eller among the later Carlovingians. They might occa- 



LORD CLIVE. 29 

sionally send to their titular sovereign a complimentary 
present, or solicit from liim a title of honor. In truth, 
however, they were no longer lieutenants removable at 
pleasure, but independent hereditary princes. In this way 
originated those great Mussulman houses which formerly 5 
ruled Bengal and the Carnatic, and those which still, 
though in a state of vassalage, exercise some of the 
j)Owers of royalty at Lucknow and Hyderabad. 

In what was this confusion to end ? Was the strife 
to continue during centuries ? Was it to terminate in lo 
the rise of another great monarchy ? Was the Mussul- 
man or the Mahratta to be the Lord of India ? Was 
another Baber to descend from the mountains, and to 
lead the hardy tribes of Cabul and Chorasan against a 
wealthier and less warlike race ? None of these events 15 
seemed improbable. But scarcely any man, however 
sagacious, would have thought it possible that a trading 
company, separated from India by fifteen thousand miles 
of sea, and possessing in India only a few acres for pur- 
poses of commerce, would, in less than a hundred years, 20 
spread its empire from Cape Comorin to the eternal snow 
of the Himalayas ; would compel Mahratta and Mahom- 
medan to forget their mutual feuds in common subjec- 
tion ; would tame down even those wild races which had 
resisted the most powerful of the Moguls ; and, having 25 
united under its laws a hundred millions of subjects, 
would carry its victorious arms far to the east of the 
Burrampooter, and far to the west of the Hydaspes, 
dictate terms of peace at the gates of Ava, and seat its 
vassal on the throne of Candahar. 



30 MACAU LAY. 

The man who first saw that it was possible to found 
a European empire on the ruins of the Mogul monarchy 
was Dupleix. His restless, capacious, and inventive 
mind had formed this scheme, at a time when the ablest 
5 servants of the English Company were busied only about 
invoices and bills of lading. Nor had he only proposed 
to himself the end. He had also a just and distinct view 
of the means by which it was to be attained. He clearly 
saw that the greatest force which the princes of India 
10 could bring into the field would be no match for a small 
body of men trained in the discipline, and guided by the 
tactics, of the West. He saw also that the natives of 
India might, under European commanders, be formed 
into armies, such as Saxe or Frederic would be proud to 
15 command. He was perfectly aware that the most easy 
and convenient way in which an European adventurer 
could exercise sovereignty in India, was to govern the 
motions, and to speak through the mouth of some glit- 
tering puppet dignified by the title of Nabob or Nizam. 
20 The arts both of war and policy, which a few years later 
were employed with such signal success by the English, 
were first understood and practised by this ingenious and 
aspiring Frenchman. 

The situation of India was such that scarcely any 
25 aggression could be without a pretext, either in old laws 
or in recent practice. All rights were in a state of utter 
uncertainty; and the Europeans who took part in the 
disputes of the natives confounded the confusion, by 
applying to Asiatic politics the public law of the West, 
and analogies drawn from the feudal system. If it was 



LOBD CLIVE. 31 

convenient to treat a Nabob as an independent prince, 
there was an excellent plea for doing so. He was inde- 
pendent in fact. If it was convenient to treat him as a 
mere deputy of the Court of Delhi, there was no diffi- 
culty ; for he was so. in theory. If it was convenient to 5 
consider his office as an hereditary dignity, or as a dig- 
nity held during life only, or as a dignity held only 
during the good pleasure of the Mogul, arguments and 
precedents might be found for every one of those views. 
The party who had the heir of Baber in their hands lo 
represented him as the undoubted, the legitimate, the 
absolute sovereign, whom all subordinate authorities were 
bound to obey. The party against whom his name was 
used did not want plausible pretexts for maintaining 
that the empire was in fact dissolved 5 and that, though 15 
it might be decent to treat the Mogul with respect, as a 
venerable relic of an order of things which had passed 
away, it was absurd to regard him as the real master of 
Hindoostan. 

In the year 1748, died one of the most powerful of the 20 
new masters of India, the great Nizam al Mulk, Viceroy 
of the Deccan. His authority descended to his son, Nazir 
Jung. Of the provinces subject to this high functionary, 
the Carnatic was the wealthiest and the most extensive. 
It was governed by an ancient Nabob, whose name the 25 
English corrupted into Anaverdy Khan. 

But there were pretenders to the government both of 
the vice-royalty and of the subordinate province. Mir- 
zapha Jung, a grandson of Nizam al Mulk, appeared as 
the competitor of Nazir Jung. Chunda Sahib, son-in-law 



32 MACAULAT. 

of a former nabob of the Carnatic, disputed the title of 
Anaverdy Khan. In the unsettled state of Indian law 
it was easy for both Mirzapha Jung and Chunda Sahib 
to make out something like a claim of right. In a 
5 society altogether disorganized, they had no dif&culty in 
finding greedy adventurers to follow their standards. 
They united their interests, invaded the Carnatic, and 
applied for assistance to the French, whose fame had 
been raised by their success against the English in the 

10 recent war on the coast of Coromandel. 

Nothing could have happened more pleasing to the 
subtle and ambitious Dupleix. To make a Nabob of the 
Carnatic, to make a Yicejoy of the Deccan, to rule under 
their names the whole of southern India ; this was 

15 indeed an attractive prospect. He allied himself with 
the pretenders, and sent four hundred French soldiers, 
and two thousand sepoys, disciplined after the European 
fashion, to the assistance of his confederates. A battle 
was fought. The French distinguished themselves 

20 greatly. Anaverdy Khan was defeated and slain. His 
son, Mahommed Ali, who was afterwards well known in 
England as the Nabob of Arcot, . and who owes to the 
eloquence of Burke a most unenviable immortality, fled 
with a scanty remnant of his army to Trichinopoly ; and 

25 the conquerors became at once masters of almost every 
part of the Carnatic. 

This was but the beginning of the greatness of Dupleix. 
After some months of fighting, negotiation, and intrigue, 
his ability and good fortune seemed to have prevailed 
everywhere. Nazir Jung perished by the hands of his 



LOBD CLIVE. 33 

own followers ; Mirzaplia Jung was master of the Deccan ; 
and the triumph of French arms and French policy was 
complete. At Pondicherry all was exultation and fes- 
tivity. Salutes were fired from the batteries^ and Te 
Deum sung in the churches. The new Nizam came 5 
thither to visit his allies ; and the ceremony of his 
installation was performed there with great pomp. 
Dupleix, dressed in the garb worn by Mahommedans of 
the highest rank, entered the town in the same palan- 
quin with the Nizam, and, in the pageant which followed, 10 
took precedence of all the court. He was declared 
Governor of India from the river Kristna to Cape Como- 
rin, a country about as large as France, with authority 
superior even to that of Chunda Sahib. He was in- 
trusted with the command of seven thousand cavalry. It 15 
was announced that no mint would be suffered to exist 
in the Carnatic except that at Pondicherry. A large 
portion of the treasures which former viceroys of the 
Deccan had accumulated found its way into the coffers 
of the French governor. It was rumored that he had 20 
received two hundred thousand pounds sterling in money, 
besides many valuable jewels. In fact, there could 
scarcely be any limit to his gains. He now ruled thirty 
millions of people with almost absolute power. No 
honor or emolument could be obtained from the govern- 25 
ment but by his intervention. No petition, unless signed 
by him, was perused by the Nizam. 

Mirzaj)ha Jung survived his elevation only a few 
months. But another prince of the same house was 
raised to the throne by French influence, and ratified all 



34 MACAULAY. 

the promises of his predecessor. Dupleix was now the 
greatest potentate in India. His countrymen boasted 
that his name was mentioned with awe even in the 
chambers of the palace of Delhi. The native population 

5 looked with amazement on the progress which, in the 
short space of four years, an European adventurer had 
made towards dominion in Asia. Nor was the vain- 
glorious Frenchman content with the reality of power. 
He loved to display his greatness with arrogant ostenta- 

10 tion before the eyes of his subjects and of his rivals. 
Near the spot where his policy had obtained its chief 
triumph, by the fall of Nazir Jung and the elevation of 
Mirzapha, he determined to erect a column, on the four 
sides of which four pompous inscriptions, in four lan- 

15 guages, should proclaim his glory to all the nations of 
the East. Medals stamped with emblems of his suc- 
cesses were buried beneath the foundations of this stately 
pillar, and round it arose a town bearing the haughty 
name of Dupleix Fatihabad, which is, being interpreted, 

20 the City of the Victory of Dupleix. 

The English had made some feeble and irresolute at- 
tempts to stop the rapid and brilliant career of the rival 
Company, and continued to recognize Mahommed Ali as 
Nabob of the Carnatic. But the dominions of Mahommed 

25 Ali consisted of Trichinopoly alone; and Trichinopoly 
was now invested by Chunda Sahib and his French 
auxiliaries. To raise the siege seemed impossible. The 
small force which was then at Madras had no com- 
mander. Major Lawrence had returned to England; 
and not a single officer of established character remained 



LOED CLIVK 35 

in the settlement. Tlie natives had learned to look with, 
contempt on the mighty nation which was soon to con- 
quer and to rule them. They had seen the French colors 
flying on Fort St. George ; they had seen the chiefs of 
the English factory led in triumph through the streets 5 
of Pondicherry ; they had seen the arms and counsels of 
Dupleix everywhere successful, while the opposition 
which the authorities of Madras had made to his prog- 
ress had served only to expose their own weakness and 
to heighten his glory. At this moment, the valor and lo 
genius of an obscure English youth suddenly turned the 
tide of fortune. 

Clive was now twenty-five years old. After hesitat- 
ing for some time between a military and a commercial 
life, he had at length been placed in a post which par- 15 
took of both characters, that of commissary to the troops, 
with the rank of captain. The present emergency called 
forth all his powers. He represented to his superiors 
that unless some vigorous effort were made, Trichinopoly 
would fall, the house of Anaverdy Khan would perish, 20 
and the French would become the real masters of the 
whole peninsula of India. It was absolutely necessary 
to strike some daring blow. If an attack were made on 
Arcot, the capital of the Carnatic, and the favorite resi- 
dence of the Nabobs, it was not impossible that the siege 25 
of Trichinopoly would be raised. The heads of the 
English settlement, now thoroughly alarmed by the suc- 
cess of Dupleix, and apprehensive that, in the event of 
a new war between France and Great Britain, Madras 
would be instantly taken and destroyed, approved of 



36 MACAULAY. 

Olive's plan, and intrusted the execution of it to himself. 
The young captain was put at the head of two hundred 
English soldiers, and three hundred sepoys, armed and 
disciplined after the European fashion. Of the eight 
5 officers who commanded this little force under him, only 
two had ever been in action, and four of the eight were 
factors of the company, whom Olive's example had 
induced to offer their services. The weather was stormy ; 
but Olive pushed on, through thunder, lightning, and 

10 rain, to the gates of Arcot. The garrison, in a panic, 
evacuated the fort, and the English entered it without a 
blow. 

But Olive well knew that he should not be suffered to 
retain undisturbed possession of his conquest. He in- 

15 stantly began to collect provisions, to throw up works, 
and to make preparations for sustaining a siege. The 
garrison, which had fled at his approach, had now re- 
covered from its dismay, and, having been swollen by 
large re-enforcements from the neighborhood to a force of 

20 three thousand men, encamped close to the town. At 
dead of night, Olive marched out of the fort, attacked 
the camp by surprise, slew great numbers, dispersed the 
rest, aiid returned to his quarters without having lost a 
single man. 

25 The intelligence of these events was soon carried to 
Ohunda Sahib, who, with his Erench allies, was besieg- 
ing Trichinopoly. He immediately detached four thou- 
sand men from his camp, and sent them to Arcot. They 
were speedily joined by the remains of the force which 
Olive had lately scattered. They were further strength- 



LORD CLIVE. 37 

ened by two thousand men from Vellore, and by a still 
more important re-enforcement of a hundred and fifty 
Erench soldiers whom Dux3leix despatched from Pondi- 
cherry. The whole of this army, amounting to about 
ten thousand men, was under the command of Eajah 5 
Sahib, son of Chunda Sahib. 

Rajah Sahib proceeded to invest the fort of Arcot, 
which seemed quite incapable of sustaining a siege. 
The walls were ruinous, the ditches dry, the ramparts 
too narrow to admit the guns, the battlements too low to lo 
protect the soldiers. The little garrison had been greatly 
reduced by casualties. It now consisted of a hundred 
and twenty Europeans and two hundred sepoys. Only 
four ofl6.cers were left; the stock of provisions was 
scanty; and the commander, who had to conduct the 15 
defence under circumstances so discouraging, was a 
young man of five and twenty, who had been bred a 
book-keeper. 

During fifty days the siege went on. During fifty 
days the young captain maintained the defence, Avith a 20 
firmness, vigilance, and ability, which would have done 
honor to the oldest marshal in Europe. The breach, 
however, increased day by day. The garrison began to 
feel the pressure of hunger. Under such circumstances, 
any troops so scantily provided with officers might have 25 
been expected to show signs of insubordination; and 
the danger was peculiarly great in a force composed of 
men differing widely from each other in extraction, 
color, language, manners and religion. But the devotion 
of the little band to its chief surpassed anything that is 



38 MACAULAY. 

related of tlie Tenth Legion of Caesar, or of the Old 
Guard of Napoleon. The sepoys came to Clive, not to 
complain of their scanty fare, but to propose that all the 
grain should be given to the Europeans, who required 
5 . more nourishment than the natives of Asia. The thin 
gruel, they said, which was strained away from the rice, 
would suffice for themselves. History contains no more 
touching instance of military fidelity, or of the influence 
of a commanding mind. 

10 An attempt made by the government of Madras to 
relieve the place had failed. But there Avas hope from 
another quarter. A body of six thousand Mahrattas, 
half soldiers, half robbers, under the command of a chief 
named Morari Kow, had been hired to assist Mahommed 

15 Ali ; but thinking the French power irresistible, and the 
triumph of Chunda Sahib certain, they had, hitherto, 
remained inactive on the frontiers of the Carnatic. The 
fame of the defence of Arcot roused them from their 
torpor. Morari Eow declared that he had never before 

20 believed that Englishmen could fight, but that he would 
willingly help them, since he saw that they had spirit to 
help themselves. Eajah Sahib learned that the Mah- 
rattas were in motion. It was necessary for him to be 
expeditious. He first tried negotiation. He offered 

25 large bribes to Clive, which were rejected with scorn. 
He vowed that, if his proposals were not accepted, he 
would instantly storm the fort, and put every man in it 
to the sword. Clive told him in reply, with character- 
istic haughtiness, that his father was an usurper, that 
his army was a rabble, and that he would do well to think 



LOBD CLIVE. 39 

twice before lie sent such poltroons into a breach, de- 
fended by English soldiers. 

Eajah Sahib determined to storm the fort. The day 
was well suited to a bold military enterprise. It was 
the great Mahommedan festival which is sacred to the 5 
memory of Hosein, the son of Ali. The history of 
Islam contains nothing more touching than the event 
which gave rise to that solemnity. The mournful legend 
relates how the chief of the Eatimites, when all his 
brave followers had perished round him, drank his latest 10 
draught of water, and uttered his latest prayer ; how the 
assassins carried his head in triumph; how the tyrant 
smote the lifeless lips with his staff ; and how a few old 
men recollected with tears that they had seen those lips 
pressed to the lips of the Prophet of God. After the 15 
lapse of near twelve centuries, the recurrence of this 
solemn season excites the fiercest and saddest emotions 
in the bosoms of the devout Moslem of India. They 
work themselves up to such agonies of rage and lamen- 
tation, that some, it is said, have given up the ghost 20 
from the mere effect of mental excitement. They be- 
lieve that whoever, during this festival, falls in arms 
against the infidels, atones by his death for all the sins 
of his life, and passes at once to the garden of the 
Houris. It was at this time that Eajah Sahib deter- 25 
mined to assault Arcot. Stimulating drugs were em- 
ployed to aid the effect of religious zeal ; and the besieg- 
ers, drunk with enthusiasm, drunk with bang, rushed 
furiously to the attack. 

Clive had received secret intelligence of the design, 



40 MACAULAY. 

had made his arrangements, and, exhausted by fatigue, 
had thrown himself on his bed. He was awakened by 
the alarm, and was instantly at his post. The enemy 
advanced, driving before them elephants whose fore- 
5 heads were armed with iron plates.. It was expected 
that the gates would yield to the shock of these living 
battering rams. But the huge beasts no sooner felt the 
English musket-balls, than they turned round, and rushed 
furiously away, trampling on the multitude which had 

10 urged them forivard. A raft was launched on the water 
which filled one part of the ditch. Clive, perceiving 
that his gunners at that post did not understand their 
business, took the management of a piece of artillery 
himself, and cleared the raft in a few minutes. Where 

15 the moat was dry the assailants mounted with great 
boldness; but they were received with a fire so heavy 
and so well directed, that it soon quelled the courage 
even of fanaticism and of intoxication. The rear ranks 
of the English kept the front ranks supplied with a 

20 constant succession of loaded muskets, and every shot 
told on the living mass below. After three desperate 
onsets, the besiegers retired behind the ditch. 

The struggle lasted about an hour. Four hundred of 
the assailants fell. The garrison lost only five or six 

25 men. The besieged passed an anxious night, looking 
for a renewal of the attack. But when day broke, the 
enemy were no more to be seen. They had retired, 
leaving to the English several guns and a large quantity 
of ammunition. 

The news was received at Eort St. George with trans- 



LOBD CLIVE. 41 

ports of joy and pride. Clive was justly regarded as a 
man equal to any command. Two hundred English 
soldiers, and seven hundred sepoys were sent to him, 
and with this force he instantly commenced offensive 
operations. He took the fort of Timery, effected a 5 
junction with a division of Morari Eow's army, and 
hastened, by forced marches, to attack Kajah Sahib, who 
was at the head of about five thousand men, of whom 
three hundred were French, The action was sharp ; but 
Clive gained a complete victory. The military chest of 10 
Kajah Sahib fell into the hands of the conquerors. Six 
hundred sepoys, who had served in the enemy's army, 
came over to Olive's quarters, and were taken into the 
British service. Conjeveram surrendered without a 
blow. The governor of Arnee deserted Chunda Sahib, 15 
and recognized the title of Mahommed Ali. 

Had the entire direction of the war been intrusted to 
Clive, it would probably have been brought to a speedy 
close. But the timidity and incapacity which appeared 
in all the movements of the English, except where he 20 
was personally present, protracted the struggle. The 
Mahrattas muttered that his soldiers were of a different 
race from the British whom they found elsewhere. The 
effect of this languor was, that in no long time Eajah 
Sahib, at the head of a considerable army, in which were 25 
four hundred French troops, appeared almost under the 
guns of Fort St. George, and laid waste the villas and 
gardens of the gentlemen of the English settlement. 
But he was again encountered and defeated by Clive. 
More than a .hundred of the French were killed or taken. 



42 MACAULAT. 

a loss more serious than that of thousands of natives. 
The victorious army marched from the field of battle to 
Eort St. David. On the road lay the City of the Victory 
of Dupleix, and the stately monument which was de- 
5 signed to commemorate the triumphs of France in the 
East. Clive ordered both the city and the monument to 
be razed to the ground. He was induced, we believe, to 
take this step, not by personal or national malevolence, 
but by a just and profound policy. The town, and its 

10 pompous name, the pillar and its vaunting inscriptions, 
were among the devices by which Dupleix had laid the 
public mind of India under a spell. This spell it was 
Olive's business to break. The natives had been taught 
that France was confessedly the first power in Europe, 

15 and that the English did not presume to dispute her 
supremacy. No measure could be more effectual for the 
removing of this delusion, than the public and solemn 
demolition of the French trophies. 

The government of Madras, encouraged by these events, 

20 determined to send a strong detachment, under Olive, to 
re-enforce the garrison of Trichinopoly. But just at this 
conjuncture, Major Lawrence arrived from England, and 
assumed the chief command. From the waywardness 
and impatience of control which had characterized Olive, 

25 both at school and in the counting-house, it might have 
been expected that he would not, after such achieve- 
ments, act with zeal and good humor in a subordinate 
capacity. But Lawrence had early treated him with 
kindness ; and it is bare justice to Olive to say that, 
proud and overbearing as he was, kindness was never 



LOBD CLIVE. 43 

thrown away upon him. He cheerfully placed himself 
under the orders of his old friend, and exerted himself 
as strenuously in the second post as he could have done 
in the first. Lawrence well knew the value of such assist- 
ance. Though himself gifted with no intellectual faculty 5 
higher than plain good sense, he fully appreciated the 
powers of his brilliant coadjutor. Though he had made 
a methodical study of military tactics, and, like all men 
regularly bred to a profession, was disposed to look with 
disdain on interlopers, he had yet liberality enough to lo 
acknowledge that Clive was an exception to common 
rules. " Some people," he wrote, " are pleased to term 
Captain Clive fortunate and lucky ; but, in my opinion, 
from the knowledge I have of the gentleman, he deserved 
and might expect from his conduct everything as it fell 15 
out : a man of an undaunted resolution, of a cool tem- 
per, and of a presence of mind which never left him in 
the greatest danger ; born a soldier, for, without a mili- 
tary education of any sort, or much conversing with any 
of the profession, from his judgment and good sense, 20 
— he led on an army like an experienced officer and a 
brave soldier, with a j)rudence that certainly warranted 
success." 

The French had no commander to oppose to the two 
friends. Dupleix, not inferior in talents for negotiation 25 
and intrigue to any European who has borne a part in the 
revolutions of India, was ill qualified to direct in person 
military operations. He had not been bred a soldier, 
and had no inclination to become one. His enemies 
accused him of personal cowardice; and he defended 



44 ' MACAULAT. 

himself in a strain worthy of Captain Bobadil. He kept 
away from shot, he said, because silence and tranquillity 
were propitious to his genius, and he found it diihcult to 
pursue his meditations amidst the noise of fire-arms. 
5 He was thus under the necessity of intrusting to others 
the execution of his great warlike designs; and he 
bitterly complained that he was ill served. He had 
indeed been assisted by one officer of eminent merit, the 
celebrated Bussy. But Bussy had marched northward 

10 with the Nizam, and was fully employed in looking after 
his own interests, and those of France, at the court of 
that prince. Among the officers who remained with 
Dupleix, there was not a single man of capacity; and 
many of them were boys, at whose ignorance and folly 

15 the common soldiers laughed. 

The English triumphed everywhere. The besiegers 
of Trichinopoly were themselves besieged and compelled 
to capitulate. Chunda Sahib fell into the hands of the 
Mahrattas, and was put to death, at the instigation prob- 

20 ably of his competitor, Mahommed Ali. The spirit of 
Dupleix, however, was unconquerable, and his resources 
inexhaustible. From his employers in Europe he no 
longer received help or countenance. They condemned 
his policy. They gave him no pecuniary assistance. 

25 They sent him for troops only the sweepings of the 
galleys. Yet still he persisted, intrigued, bribed, prom- 
ised, lavished his private fortune, strained his credit, 
procured new diplomas from Delhi, raised up new enemies 
to the government of Madras on every side, and found 
tools even among the allies of the English Company. 



LORD CLIVE. 45 

But all was in vain. Slowly, but steadily, the power of 
Britain continued to increase, and that of France to 
decline. 

The health of Clive had never been good during his 
residence in India; and his constitution was now so 5 
much impaired that he determined to return to England. 
Before his departure he undertook a service of consider- 
able difficulty, and performed it with his usual vigor and 
dexterity. The forts of Covelong and Chingleput were 
occupied by French garrisons. It was determined to 10 
send a force against them. But the only force available 
for this purpose was of such a description that no officer 
but Clive would risk his reputation by commanding it. 
It consisted of five hundred newly levied sepoys, and 
two hundred recruits who had just landed from England, 15 
and who were the worst and lowest wretches that the 
Company's crimps could pick up in the flash-houses of 
London. Clive, ill and exhausted as he was, undertook 
to make an army of this undisciplined rabble, and 
marched with them to Covelong. A shot from the fort 20 
killed one of these extraordinary soldiers, on which all 
the rest faced about and ran away, and it was with the 
greatest difficulty that Clive rallied them. On another 
occasion, the noise of a gun terrified the sentinels so 
much that one of them was found, some hours later, at 25 
the bottom of a well. Clive gradually accustomed them 
to danger, and, by exposing himself constantly in the 
most perilous situations, shamed them into courage. 
He at length succeeded in forming a respectable force 
out of his unpromising materials. Covelong fell. Clive 



46 MACATTLAY. 

learned that a strong detachment was marching to re- 
lieve it from Chinglepnt. He took measures to prevent 
the enemy from learning that they were too late, laid an 
ambuscade for them on the road, killed a hundred of 

5 them with one fire, took three hundred prisoners, pur- 
sued the fugitives to the gates of Chingleput, laid siege 
instantly to that fastness, reputed one of the strongest 
in India, made a breach, and was on the point of storm- 
ing when the French commandant capitulated and re- 

10 tired with his men. 

Clive returned to Madras victorious, but in a state of 
health which rendered it impossible for him to remain 
there long. He married at this time a young lady of 
the name of Maskelyne, sister of the eminent mathema- 

15 tician, who long held the post of Astronomer Eoyal. 
She is described as handsome and accomplished; and 
her husband's letters, it is said, contain proofs that he 
was devotedly attached to her. 

Almost immediately after the marriage, Clive em- 

20 barked with his bride for England. He returned a very 
different person from the poor slighted boy who had 
been sent out ten years before to seek his fortune. He 
was only twenty-seven ; yet his country already respected 
him as one of her first soldiers. There was then gen- 

25 eral peace in Europe. The Carnatic was the only part 
of the world where the English and French were in 
arms against each other. The vast schemes of Dupleix 
had excited no small uneasiness in the city of London ; 
and the rapid turn of fortune, which was chiefly owing 
to the courage and talents of Clive, had been hailed 



LOBB CLIVE. 47 

with great delight. The young captain was known at 
the India House by the honorable nickname of General 
Clive, and was toasted by that appellation at the feasts 
of the Directors. On his arrival in England, he found 
himself an object of general interest and admiration. 5 
The East India Company thanked him for his services 
in the warmest terms, and bestowed on him a sword set 
with diamonds. With rare delicacy, he refused to re- 
ceive this token of gratitude, unless a similar compli- 
ment were paid to his friend and commander, Lawrence. 10 

It may easily be supposed that Clive was most cor- 
dially welcomed home by his family^ who were delighted 
by his success, though they seem to have been hardly 
able to comprehend how their naughty idle Bobby had 
become so great a man. His father had been singularly 15 
hard of belief. Not until the news of the defence of 
Arcot arrived in England was the old gentleman heard 
to growl out that, after all, the booby had something in 
him. His expressions of approbation became stronger 
and stronger, as news arrived of one brilliant exploit 20 
after another ; and he was at length immoderately fond 
and proud of his son. 

Clive's relations had very substantial reasons for re- 
joicing at his return. Considerable sums of prize money 
had fallen to his share ; and he had brought home a 25 
moderate fortune, part of which he expended in extri- 
cating his father from pecuniary difficulties, and in 
redeeming the family estate. The remainder he appears 
to have dissipated in the course of about two years. He 
lived splendidly, dressed gayly even for those times, kept 



48 MACAULAT. 

a carriage and saddle horses ; and, not content with these 
ways of getting rid of his money, resorted to the most 
speedy and effectual of all modes of evacuation, a con- 
tested election followed by a petition. 
5 At the time of the general election of 1754, the 
government was in a very singular state. There was 
scarcely any formal opposition. The Jacobites had been 
cowed by the issue of the last rebellion. The Tory 
party had fallen into utter contempt. It had been de- 

10 serted by all the men of talents who had belonged to it, 
and had scarcely given a symptom of life during some 
years. The small faction which had been held together 
by the influence and promises of Prince Erederic, had 
been dispersed by his death. Almost every public man 

15 of distinguished talents in the kingdom, whatever his 
early connections might have been, was in office, and 
called himself a Whig. But this extraordinary appear- 
ance of concord was quite delusive. The administration 
itself was distracted by bitter enmities and conflicting 

20 pretensions. The chief object of its members was to 
depress and supplant each other. The prime minister, 
Newcastle, weak, timid, jealous, and perfidious, was at 
once detested and despised by some of the most impor- 
tant members of his government, and by none more than 

25 by Henry Fox, the Secretary at War. This able, daring, 
and ambitious man seized every opportunity of crossing 
the First Lord of the Treasury, from whom he well 
knew that he had little to dread and little to hope ; for 
Newcastle was, through life, equally afraid of breaking 
with men of parts and of promoting them. 



LOBD CLIVK 49 

Newcastle had set his heart on returning two members 
for St. Michael, one of those wretched Cornish boroughs 
which were swept away by the Reform Act in 1832. He 
was opposed by Lord Sandwich, whose influence had 
long been paramount there : and Fox exerted himself 5 
strenuously in Sandwich's behalf. Clive, who had been 
introduced to Fox, and very kindly received by him, was 
brought forward on the Sandwich interest, and was re- 
turned. But a petition was presented, against the return, 
and was backed by the whole influence of the Duke of lo 
Newcastle. 

The case was heard, according to the usage of that 
time, before a committee of the whole House. Ques- 
tions respecting elections were then considered merely 
as party questions. Judicial impartiality was not even 15 
affected. Sir Eobert Walpole was in the habit of saying 
openly, that, in election battles, there ought to be no 
quarter. On the present occasion the excitement was 
great. The matter really at issue, was, not whether 
Clive had been properly or improperly returned, but 20 
whether Newcastle or Fox was to be master of the new 
House of Commons, and consequently first minister. 
The contest was long and obstinate, and success seemed 
to lean sometimes to one side and sometimes to the 
other. Fox put forth all his rare powers of debate, beat 25 
half the lawyers in the House at their own weapons, and 
carried division after division against the whole influ- 
ence of the Treasury. The committee decided in Clive's 
favor. But when the resolution was reported to the 
HousB; things took a different course. The remnant of 



50 MACAULAY. 

the Tory Opposition, contemptible as it was, had yet 
sufficient weight to turn the scale between the nicely 
balanced parties of Newcastle and Fox. Newcastle, the 
Tories could only despise. Fox, they hated, as the bold- 

5 est and most subtle politician, and the ablest debater 
among the Whigs, as the steady friend of Walpole, as 
the devoted adherent of the Duke of Cumberland. After 
wavering till the last moment, they determined to vote 
in a body with the Prime Minister's friends. The con- 

10 sequence was that the House, by a small majority, re- 
scinded the decision of the committee, and Clive was 
unseated. 

Ejected from Parliament, and straitened in his means, 
he naturally began to look again towards India. The 

15 Company and the Government were eager to avail them- 
selves of his services. A treaty favorable to England 
had indeed been concluded in the Carnatic. Dupleix 
had been superseded, and had returned with the wreck 
of his immense fortune to Europe, where calumny and 

20 chicanery soon hunted him to his grave. But many 
signs indicated that a war between France and Great 
Britain was at hand ; and it was therefore thought de- 
sirable to send an able commander to the Company's 
settlements in India. The Directors appointed Clive 

25 governor of Fort St. David. The King gave him the 
commission of a lieutenant-colonel in the British army, 
and in 1755 he again sailed for Asia. 

The first service on which he was employed after his 
return to the East was the reduction of the stronghold 
of Gheriah. This fortress, built on a craggy promontory, 



LOBB CLIVE. 51 

and almost surrounded by the ocean, was the den of a 
pirate named Angria, whose barks had long been the 
terror of the Arabian Gulf. Admiral Watson, who com- 
manded the English squadron in the Eastern seas, 
burned Angria's fleet, while Clive attacked the fastness 5 
by land. The place soon fell, and a booty of a hundred 
and fifty thousand pounds sterling was divided among 
the conquerors. 

After this exploit, Clive proceeded to his government 
of Fort St. David. Before he had been there two 10 
months, he received intelligence which called forth all 
the energy of his bold and active mind. ^^-.*-« 

Of the provinces which had been subject to the house 
of Tamerlane, the wealthiest was Bengal. ISTo part of 
India possessed such natural advantages both for agricul- 15 
ture and for commerce. The Ganges, rushing through a 
hundred channels to the sea, has formed a vast plain of 
rich mould which, even under the tropical sky, rivals 
the verdure of an English April.. The ricefields yield 
an increase such as is elsewhere unknown. Spices, 20 
sugar, vegetable oils, are produced with marvellous ex- 
uberance. The rivers afford an inexhaustible supply of 
fish. The desolate islands along the sea-coast, overgrown 
by noxious vegetation, and swarming with deer and 
tigers, supply the cultivated districts with abundance of 25 
salt. The great stream which fertilizes the soil is, at 
the same time, the chief highway of Eastern commerce. 
On its banks, and on those of its tributary waters, are 
the wealthiest marts, the most splendid capitals, and the 
most sacred shrines of India. The tyranny of man had 



52 MACAULAT. 

for ages struggled in vain against the overflowing bounty 
of nature. In spite of the Mussulman despot and of the 
Mahratta freebooter, Bengal was known through the 
East as the garden of Eden, as the rich kingdom. Its 

5 population multiplied exceedingly. Distant provinces 
were nourished from the overflowing of its granaries; 
and the noble ladies of London and Paris were clothed 
in the delicate produce of its looms. The race by whom 
this rich tract was peopled, enervated by a soft climate 

10 and accustomed to peaceful employments, bore the same 
relation to other Asiatics which the Asiatics generally 
bear to the bold and energetic children of Europe. The 
Castilians have a proverb, that in Valencia the earth is 
water and the men women; and the description is at 

15 least equally applicable to the vast plain of the Lower 
Ganges. Whatever the Bengalee does he does languidly. 
His favorite pursuits are sedentary. He shrinks from 
bodily exertion; and, though voluble in dispute, and 
singularly pertinacious in the war of chicane, he seldom 

20 engages in a personal conflict, and scarcely ever enlists 
as a soldier. We doubt whether there be a hundred 
genuine Bengalees in the whole army of the East India 
Company. There never, perhaps, existed a people so 
thoroughly fitted by nature and by habit for a foreign 

25 yoke. 

The great commercial companies of Europe had long 
possessed factories in Bengal. The French were settled, 
as they still are, at Chandernagore on the Hoogley. 
Higher up the stream the Dutch traders held Chinsurah. 
Nearer to the sea, the English had built Fort William. 



LORD GLIVE. 63 

A church, and ample warehouses rose in the vicinity. A 
row of spacious houses, belonging to the chief factors of 
the East India Company, lined the banks of the river ; 
and in the neighborhood had sprung up a large and busy 
native town, where some Hindoo merchants of great 5 
opulence had fixed their abode. But the tract now cov- 
vered by the palaces of Chowringhee contained only a 
few miserable huts thatched with straw. A jungle, 
abandoned to water-fowl and alhgators, covered the site 
of the present Citadel, and the Course, which is now 10 
daily crowded at sunset with the gayest equipages of 
Calcutta. Por the ground on which the settlement 
stood, the English, like other great landholders, paid 
rent to the government ; and they were, like other great 
landholders, permitted to exercise a certain jurisdiction 15 
within their domain. 

The great province of Bengal, together with Orissa 
and Bahar, had long been governed by a viceroy, whom 
the English called Aliverdy Khan, and who, like the 
other viceroys of the Mogul, had become virtually inde- 20 
pendent. He died in 1756, and the sovereignty de- 
scended to his grandson, a youth under twenty years of 
age, who bore the name of Surajah Dowlah. Oriental 
despots are perhaps the worst class of human beings ; 
and this unhappy boy was one of the worst specimens of 25 
his class. His understanding was naturally feeble, and 
his temper naturally unamiable. His education had 
l)een such as would have enervated even a vigorous 
intellect, and perverted even a generous disposition. 
He was unreasonable, because nobody ever dared to rea- 



64 MACAULAY. 

son with him; and selfish, because he had never been 
made to feel himself dependent on the good will of 
others. Early debauchery had unnerved his body and 
his mind. He indulged immoderately in the use of 

5 ardent spirits, which inflamed his weak brain almost to 
madness. His chosen companions were flatterers sprung 
from the dregs of the people, and recommended by noth- 
ing but buffoonery and servility. It is said that he had 
arrived at that last stage of human depravity, when 

10 cruelty becomes pleasing for its own sake, when the 
sight of pain as pain, where no advantage is to be 
gained, no offence punished, no danger averted, is an 
agreeable excitement. It had early been his amusement 
to torture beasts and birds ; and, when he grew up, he 

15 enjoyed with still keener relish the misery of his fellow- 
creatures. 

From a child Surajah Dowlah had hated the English. 
It was his whim to do so, and his whims were never 
opposed. He had also formed a very exaggerated notion 

20 of the wealth which might.be obtained by plundering 
them; and his feeble and uncultivated mind was inca- 
pable of perceiving that the riches of Calcutta, had they 
been even greater than he imagined, would not compen- 
sate him for what he must lose, if the European trade, 

25 of which Bengal was a chief seat, should be driven by 
his violence to some other quarter. Pretexts for a quarrel 
were readily found. The English, in expectation of a war 
with Erance, had begun to fortify their settlement with- 
out special permission from the Nabob. A rich native 
whom he longed to plunder had taken refuge at Calcutta, 



LOBJD CLIVE. 65 

and had not been delivered up. On sucli grounds as 
these Surajah Dowlah marched with a great army against 
Fort William. 

The servants of the Company at Madras had been 
forced by Dupleix to become statesmen and soldiers. 5 
Those in Bengal were still mere traders, and were terri- 
fied and bewildered by the approaching danger. The 
governor, who had heard much of Surajah Dowlah's 
cruelty, was frightened out of his wits, jumped into a 
boat, and took refuge in the nearest ship. The military 10 
commandant thought he could not do better than follow 
so good an example. The fort was taken after a feeble 
resistance ; and great numbers of the English fell into 
the hands of the conquerors. The Nabob seated himself 
with regal pomp in the principal hall of the factory, and 15 
ordered Mr. Holwell, the first in rank among the prison- 
ers, to be brought before him. His Highness talked 
about the insolence of the English, and grumbled at the 
smallness of the treasure which he had found; but 
promised to spare their lives, and retired to rest. 20 

Then was committed that great crime, memorable for 
its singular atrocity, memorable for the tremendous 
retribution by which it was followed. The English 
captives were left at the mercy of the guards, and the 
guards determined to secure them for the night in the 25 
prison of the garrison, a chamber known by the fearful 
name of the Black Hole. Even for a single European 
malefactor, that dungeon would, in such a climate, have 
been too close and narrow. The space was only twenty 
feet square. The air-holes were small and obstructed. 



66 MACAULAY. 

It was the summer solstice, the season when the fierce 
heat of Bengal can scarcely be rendered tolerable to 
natives of England by lofty halls and by the constant 
waving of fans. The number of the prisoners was one 
5 hundred and forty-six. When they were ordered to 
enter the cell, they imagined that the soldiers were 
joking ; and, being in high spirits on account of the 
promise of the Nabob to spare their lives, they laughed 
and jested at the absurdity of the notion. They soon 

10 discovered their mistake. They expostulated ; they en- 
treated, but in vain. The guards threatened to cut down 
all who hesitated. The captives Avere driven into the 
cell at the point of the sword, and the door was instantly 
shut and locked upon them. 

15 Nothing in history or fiction, not even the story which 
Ugolino told in the sea of everlasting ice, after he had 
wiped his bloody lips on the scalp of his murderer, 
approaches the horrors which were recounted by the few 
survivors of that night. They cried for mercy. They 

20 strove to burst the door. Holwell, who, even in that 
extremity, retained some presence of mind, offered large 
bribes to the jailers. But the answer was that nothing 
could be done without the Nabob's orders, that the 
Nabob was asleep, and that he would be angry if any- 

25 body woke him. Then the prisoners went mad with 
despair. They trampled each other down, fought for 
the places at the windows, fought for the pittance of 
water with which the cruel mercy of the murderers 
mocked their agonies, raved, prayed, blasphemed, im- 
plored the guards to fire among them. The jailers in 



LOBD CLIVE. 57 

the mean time held lights to the bars, and shouted with 
laughter at the frantic struggles of their victims. At 
length the tumult died away in low gaspings and mean- 
ings. The day broke. The Nabob had slept off his 
debauch, and permitted the door to be opened. But it 5 
was some time before the soldiers could make a lane for 
the survivors, by piling up on each side the heaps of 
corpses on which the burning climate had already begun 
to do its loathsome work. When at length a passage 
was made, twenty-three ghastly figures, such as their lo 
own mothers would not have known, staggered one by 
one out of the charnel-house. A pit was instantly dug. 
The dead bodies, a hundred and twenty-three in number, 
were flung into it promiscuously and covered up. 

But these things which, after the lapse of more than 15 
eighty years, cannot be told or read without horror, 
awakened neither remorse nor x^ity in the bosom of the 
savage Nabob. He inflicted no punishment on the mur- 
derers. He showed no tenderness to the survivors. 
Some of them, indeed, from whom nothing was to be 20 
got, were suffered to depart ; but those from whom it 
was thought that anything could be extorted were treated 
with execrable cruelty. Holwell, unable to walk, was 
carried before the tyrant, who reproached him, threat- 
ened him, and sent him u}) the country in irons, together 25 
with some other gentlemen who were suspected of 
knowing more than they chose to tell about the treas- 
ures of the Company. These persons, still bowed down 
by the sufferings of that great agony, were lodged in 
miserable sheds, and fed only with grain and water, till 



58 MACAULAY. 

at lengtli the intercessions of the female relations of the 
Nabob procured their release. One Englishwoman had 
survived that night. She was placed in the harem of 
the Prince at Moorshedabad. 
5 Sura j ah Dowlah, in the mean time, sent letters to his 
nominal sovereign at Delhi, describing the late conquest 
in the most pompous language. He placed a garrison in 
Fort William, forbade Englishmen to dwell in the neigh- 
borhood, and directed that, in memory of his great 

10 actions, Calcutta should thenceforward be called Alina- 
gore, that is to say, the Port of God. 

In August, the news of the fall of Calcutta reached 
Madras, and excited the fiercest and bitterest resent- 
ment. The cry of the whole settlement was for ven- 

15 geance. Within forty-eight hours after the arrival of 
the intelligence it was determined that an expedition 
should be sent to the Hoogiey, and that Clive should be 
at the head of the land forces. The naval armament was 
under the command of Admiral Watson. Nine hundred 

20 English infantry, fine troops and full of spirit, and 
fifteen hundred sepoys, composed the army which sailed 
to punish a Prince who had more subjects than Louis 
the Fifteenth or the Empress Maria Theresa. In Octo- 
ber the expedition sailed ; but it had to make its way 

25 against adverse winds, and did not reach Bengal till 
December. 

The Nabob was revelling in fancied security at Moor- 
shedabad. He was so profoundly ignorant of the state 
of foreign countries, that he often used to say that there 
were not ten thousand men in all Europe ; and it had 



LORD CLIVE. 59 

never occurred to liim as possible that tlie English 
would dare to invade his dominions. But^ though un- 
disturbed by any fear of their militp.ry power, he began 
to miss them greatly. His revenues fell off; and his 
ministers succeeded in making him understand that a 5 
ruler may sometimes find it more profitable to protect 
traders in the open enjoyment of their gains than to put 
them to the torture for the purpose of discovering hidden 
chests of gold and jewels. He was already disposed to 
permit the Company to resume its mercantile operations 10 
in his country, when he received the news that an 
English armament was in the Hoogley. He instantly 
ordered all his troops to assemble at Moorshedabad^ and 
marched towards Calcutta. 

Clive had commenced operations with his usual vigor. 15 
He took Budgebudge, routed the garrison of Fort Wil- 
liam, recovered Calcutta, stormed and sacked Hoogley. 
The Nabob, already disposed to ma.ke some concessions 
to the English, was confirmed in his pacific disposition 
by these proofs of their power and spirit. He accord- 20 
ingly made overtures to the chiefs of the invading 
armament, and offered to restore the factory, and to give 
compensation to those whom he had despoiled. 

Clive's profession was war ; and he felt that there was 
something discreditable in an accommodation with Sura- 25 
jah Dowlah. But his power was limited. A committee, 
chiefly composed of servants of the Company who had 
fled from Calcutta, had the principal direction of affairs ; 
and these x^ersons were eager to be restored to their 
posts and compensated for their losses. The govern- 



60 MACAULAY. 

ment of Madras, apprised that war had commenced in 
Europe, and apprehensive of an attack from the French, 
became imjjatient for the return of the armament. The 
promises of the Nabob were large, the chances of a con- 

5 test doubtful ; and Olive consented to treat, though he 
expressed his regret that things should not be concluded 
in so glorious a manner as he could have wished. 

With this negotiation commences a new chapter in 
the life of Olive. Hitherto he had been merely a soldier 

10 carrying into effect, with eminent ability and valor, the 
plans of others. Henceforth he is to be chiefly regarded 
as a statesman -, and his military movements are to be 
considered as subordinate to his political designs. That 
in his new capacity he displayed great ability, and 

15 obtained great success, is unquestionable. But it is also 
unquestionable that the transactions in which he now 
began to take a part, have left a stain on his moral 
character. 

We can by no means agree with Sir John Malcolm, 

20 who is obstinately resolved to see nothing but honor and 
integrity in the conduct of his hero. But we can as 
little agree with Mr. Mill, who has gone so far as to say 
that Olive was a man "to whom deception, when it 
suited his purpose, never cost a pang." Olive seems to 

25 us to have been constitutionally the very opposite of a 
knave ; bold even to temerity ; sincere even to indiscre- 
tion ; hearty in friendship ; open in enmity. Neither in 
his private life, nor in those parts of his public life in 
which he had to do with his countrymen, do we find any 
signs of a propensity to cunning. On the contrary, in 



LOBB CLIVE. 61 

all the disputes in which he was engaged as an English- 
man against Englishmen, from his boxing-matches at 
school, to those stormy altercations at the India House 
and in Parliament, amidst which his latter years were 
passed, his very faults were those of a high and magnani- 5 
mous spirit. The truth seems to have been that he con- 
sidered Oriental politics as a game in which nothing was 
unfair. He knew that the standard of morality among 
the natives of India differed widely from that established 
in England. He knew that he had to deal With men lo 
destitute of what in Europe is called honor ; with men 
who would give any promise without hesitation, and 
break any promise without shame ; with men who would 
unscrupulously employ corruption, perjury, forgery, to 
compass their ends. His letters show that the great 15 
difference between Asiatic and European morality was 
constantly in his thoughts. He seems to have imagined, 
most erroneously, in our opinion, that he could effect 
nothing against such adversaries, if he was content to be 
bound by ties from which they were free ; if he went on 20 
telling truth, and hearing none ; if he fulfilled, to his 
own hurt, all his engagements with confederates, who 
never kept an engagement that was not to their advan- 
tage. Accordingly this man, in the other parts of his 
life, an honorable English gentleman and a soldier, was 25 
no sooner matched against an Indian intriguer, than he 
became himself an Indian intriguer, and descended, 
without scruple, to falsehood, to hypocritical caresses, 
to the substitution of documents, and to the counterfeit- 
ing of hands. 



62 MACAULAT. 

The negotiations between the English and the Xabob 
were carried on chiefly by two agents, Mr. Watts, a 
servant of the Company, and a Bengalee of the name of 
Omichund. This Omichund had been one of the wealth- 
5 lest native merchants resident in Calcutta, and had sus- 
tained great losses in consequence of the Xabob's expedi- 
tion against that place. In the course of his commercial 
transactions, he had seen much of the English, and was 
peculiarly qualified to serve as a medium of communica- 

10 tion between them and a native court. He possessed 
great influence with his own race, and had in large 
measure the Hindoo talents, quick observation, tact, 
dexterity, perseverance ; and the Hindoo vices, servility, 
greediness, and treachery. 

15 The Xabob behaved with all the faithlessness of an 
Indian statesman, and with all the levity of a boy whose 
mind had been enfeebled by power and seK-indulgence. 
He promised, retracted, hesitated, evaded. At one time 
he advanced with his army in a threatening manner 

20 towards Calcutta; but when he saw the resolute front 
which the English presented, he fell back in alarm, and 
consented to make peace with them on their own terms. 
The treaty was no sooner concluded than he formed new 
designs against them. He intrigued with the Erench 

25 authorities at Chandernagore. He invited Bussy to 
march from the Deccan to the Hoogley, and to drive the 
English out of Bengal. All tliis was well known to 
Clive and "Watson. They determined accordingly to 
strike a decisive blow, and to attack Chandernagore, 
before the force there could be strengthened by new 



LORD CLIVE. 63 

arrivals, eitlier from the south, of India or from Europe. 
Watson directed the expedition by water, Clive by land. 
The success of the combined movements was rapid and 
complete. The fort, the garrison, the artillery, the 
military stores, all fell into the hands of the English. 5 
Xear five hundred European troops were among the 
prisoners. 

The Kabob had feared and hated the English, even 
while he was still able to oppose to them their Erench 
rivals. The Erench were now vanquished; and he be- 10 
gan to regard the English with still greater fear and 
still greater hatred. His weak and unprincipled mind 
oscillated between servility and insolence. One day he 
sent a large sum to Calcutta, as part of the compensation 
due for the wrongs which he had committed. The next 15 
day he sent a present of jewels to Bussy, exhorting that 
distinguished officer to hasten to protect Bengal ••' against 
Clive, the daring in war, on whom,'' says his Highness, 
" may all bad fortune attend." He ordered his army to 
march against the English. He countermanded his 20 
orders. He tore Clive's letters. He then sent answers 
in the most florid language of compliment. He ordered 
Watts out of his presence, and threatened to impale him. 
He again sent for Watts, and begged pardon for the 
insult. In the mean time, his wretched maladministra- 25 
tion, his folly, his dissolute manners, and his love of the 
lowest company, had disgusted all classes of his subjects, 
soldiers, traders, civil functionaries, the proud and osten- 
tatious Mahommedans, the timid, supple, and parsimo- 
nious Hindoos. A formidable confederacv was formed 



64 MACAULAY. 

against Mm, in wliich. were included Roydullub, the 
minister of finance, Meer Jaffier, the principal com- 
mander of the troops, and Jugget Seit, the richest 
banker in India. The plot was confided to the English 
5 agents, and a communication was opened between the 
malcontents at Moorshedabad and the committee at 
Calcutta. 

In the committee there was much hesitation; but 
Olive's voice was given in favor of the conspirators, and 

10 his vigor and firmness bore down all opposition. It Avas 
determined that the English should lend their powerful 
assistance to depose Surajah Dowlah, and to place Meer 
Jafiier on the throne of Bengal. In return, Meer Jaffier 
promised ample compensation to the Company and its 

15 servants, and a liberal donative to the army, the navy, 
and the committee. The odious vices of Surajah Dow- 
lah, the wrongs which the English had suffered at his 
hands, the dangers to which our trade must have been 
exposed had he continued to reign, .appear to us fully to 

20 justify the resolution of deposing him. But nothing can 
justify the dissimulation which Clive stooped to practise. 
He wrote to Surajah Dowlah in terms so affectionate 
that they for a time lulled that weak prince into perfect 
security. The same courier who carried this " soothing 

25 letter," as Clive calls it, to the Nabob, carried to Mr. 
Watts a letter in the following terms : ^^ Tell Meer Jaffier 
to fear nothing. I will join him with five thousand men 
who never turned their backs. Assure him I will march 
night and day to his assistance, and stand by him as 
long as I have a man left." 



LOBD CLIVE. 63 

It was impossible fliat a plot wMcli liad so many rami- 
fications should long remain entirely concealed. Enough 
reached the ears of the Nabob to arouse his suspicions. 
But he was soon quieted by the fictions and artifices 
which the inventive genius of Omichund produced with 5 
miraculous readiness. All was going well ; the plot was 
nearly ripe ; when Clive learned that Omichund was 
likely to play false. The artful Bengalee had been 
promised a liberal compensation for all that he had lost 
at Calcutta. But this would not satisfy him. His ser- ^q 
vices had been great. He held the thread of the whole 
intrigue. By one word breathed in the ear of Surajah 
Dowlah, he could undo all that he had done. The lives 
of Watts, of Meer Jaffier, of all the conspirators, were 
at his mercy ; and he determined to take advantage of 15 
his situation, and to make his own terms. 

He demanded three hundred thousand pounds sterling 
as the price of his secrecy and of his assistance. The 
committee, incensed by the treachery and ax^x^alled by the 
danger, knew not what course to take. But Clive was 20 
more than Omichund's match in Omichund's own arts. 
The man, he said, was a villain. Any artifice which 
would defeat such knavery was justifiable. The best 
course would be to promise what was asked. Omichund 
would soon be at their mercy; and then they might 25 
punish him by withholding from him, not only the bribe 
vrhich he now demanded, but also the compensation 
which all the other sufferers of Calcutta were to receive. 

His advice was taken. But how was the wary and 
sagacious Hindoo to be deceived? He had demanded 



66 MAGAULAT. 

that an article touching his claims should be inserted in 
the treaty between Meer Jaffier and the English, and he 
would not be satisfied unless he saw it with his own 
eyes. Clive had an expedient ready. Two treaties 

5 were drawn up, one on white paper, the other on red ; 
the former real, the latter fictitious. In the former 
Omichund's name was not mentioned ; the latter, which 
was to be shown to him, contained a stipulation in his 
favor. 

10 But another difficulty arose. Admiral Watson had 
scruples about signing the red treaty. Omichund's vigi- 
lance and acuteness were such that the absence of so 
important a name would probably awaken his suspicions. 
But Clive was not a man to do anything by halves. We 

15 almost blush to write it. He forged Admiral Watson's 
name. 

All was now ready for action. Mr. Watts fled secretly 
from Moorshedabad. Clive put his troops in motion, 
and wrote to the Nabob in a tone very different from 

20 that of his previous letters. He set forth all the wrongs 
which the British had suffered, offered to submit the 
points in dispute to the arbitration of Meer Jaffier, and 
concluded by announcing that, as the rains were about 
to set in, he and his men would do themselves the honor 

25 of waiting on his Highness for an answer. 

Surajah Dowlah instantly assembled his whole force, 
and marched to encounter the English. It had been 
agreed that Meer Jaffier should separate himself from 
the Nabob, and carry over his division to Clive. But, as 
the decisive moment approached, the fears of the con- 



LOBD CLIVE. 67 

spirator overpowered liis ambition. Olive had advanced 
to Cossimbuzar. The Nabob lay with a mighty power a . 
few miles off at Plassey ; and still Meer Jaffier delayed 
to fulfil his engagements, and returned evasive answers 
to the earnest remonstrances of the English general. 5 

Clive was in a painfully anxious situation. He could 
place no confidence in the sincerity or in the courage of 
his confederate ; and, whatever confidence he might 
place in his own military talents, and in the valor and 
discipline of his troops, it was no light thing to engage lo 
an army twenty times as numerous as his own. Before 
him lay a river over which it was easy to advance, but 
over which, if things went ill, not one of his little band 
would ever return. On this occasion, for the first and 
for the last time, his dauntless spirit, during a few hours, 15 
shrank from the fearful responsibility of making a deci- 
sion. He called a council of war. The majority pro- 
nounced against fighting ; and Olive decl?.red his concur- 
rence with the majority. Long afterwards, he said that 
he had never called but one council of war, and that, if 20 
he had taken the advice of that council, the British 
would never have been masters of Bengal. But scarcely 
had the meeting broken up when he was himself again. 
He retired alone under the shade of some trees, and 
passed near an hour there in thought. He came back 25 
determined to put everything to the hazard, and gave 
orders that all should be in readiness for passing the 
river on the morrow. 

The river was passed ; and, at the close of a toilsome 
day's march, the army, long after sunset, took up its 



68 MACAULAY. 

quarters in a grove of mango-trees near Plassey, within 
a mile of the enemy. Clive was unable to sleep. He 
heard; through the whole night, the sound of drums and 
cymbals from the vast camp of the Nabob. It is not 
5 strange that even his stout heart should now and then 
have sunk, when he reflected against what odds, and for 
what a prize, he was in a few hours to contend. 

Nor was the rest of Surajah Dowlah more peaceful. 
His mind, at once weak and stormy, was distracted by 

10 wild and horrible apprehensions. Appalled by the 
greatness and nearness of the crisis, distrusting his 
captains, dreading every one who approached him, 
dreading to be left alone, he sat gloomily in his tent, 
haunted, a Greek poet would have said, by the furies of 

15 those who had cursed him with their last breath in the 
Black Hole. 

The day broke, — the day which was to decide the 
fate of India. At sunrise the army of the Nabob, pour- 
ing through many openings of the camp, began to move 

20 towards the grove where the English lay. Eorty thou- 
sand infantry, armed with firelocks, pikes, swords, bows 
and arrows, covered the plain. They were accompanied 
by fifty pieces of ordnance of the largest size, each 
tugged by a long team of white oxen, and each pushed 

25 on from behind by an elephant. Some smaller guns, 
under the direction of a few French auxiliaries, were 
perhaps more formidable. The cavalry were fifteen 
thousand, drawn, not from the effeminate population of 
Bengal, but from the bolder race which inhabits the 
northern provinces ; and the practised eye of Clive could 



LOBD CLIVE. 69 

perceive that both, the men and the horses were more 
powerful than those of the Carnatic. The force which 
he had to oppose to this great multitude consisted of 
only three thousand men. But of these nearly a thou- 
sand were English, and all were led by English officers, 5 
and trained in the English discipline. Conspicuous in 
the ranks of the little army were the men of the Thirty- 
Ninth Eegiment, which still bears on its colors, amidst 
many honorable additions won under Wellington in Spain 
and Gascony, the name of Plassey, and the proud motto, lo 
Primus in Indis. 

The battle commenced with a cannonade, in which the 
artillery of the Nabob did scarcely any execution, while 
the few field-pieces of the English produced great effect. 
Several of the most distinguished officers in Surajah 15 
Dowlah's service fell. Disorder began to spread through 
his ranks. His own terror increased every moment. 
One of the conspirators urged on him the expediency of 
retreating. The insidious advice, agreeing as it did with 
what his own terrors suggested, was readily received. 20 
He ordered his army to fall back, and this order decided 
his fate. Clive snatched the moment, and ordered his 
troops to advance. The confused and dispirited multi- 
tude gave way before the onset of disciplined valor. No 
mob attacked by regular soldiers was ever more com- 25 
pletely routed. The little band of Frenchmen, who alone 
ventured to confront the English, were swept down the 
stream of fugitives. In an hour the forces of Surajah 
Dowlali were dispersed, never to re-assemble. Only five 
hundred of the vanquished were slain. But their camp, 



70 MACAULAT. 

their guns, their baggage, innumerable wagons, innumer- 
able cattle, remained in the power of the conquerors. 
With the loss of twenty-two soldiers killed and fifty 
wounded, Clive had scattered an army of near sixty 
5 thousand men, and subdued an empire larger and more 
populous than Great Britain. 

Meer Jaffier had given no assistance to the English 
during the action. But, as soon as he saw that the fate 
of the day was decided, he drew off his division of the 

10 army, and, when the battle was over, sent his congratu- 
lations to his ally. The next morning he repaired to 
the English quarters, not a little uneasy as to the recep- 
tion which awaited him there. He gave evident signs 
of alarm when a guard was drawn out to receive him 

15 with the honors due to his rank. But his apprehensions 
were speedily removed. Clive came forward to meet 
him, embraced him, saluted him as Nabob of the three 
great provinces of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa, listened 
graciously to his apologies, and advised him to march 

20 without delay to Moorshedabad. 

Surajah Dowlah had fled from the field of battle with 
all the speed with which a fleet camel could carry him, 
and arrived at Moorshedabad in little more than twenty- 
four hours. There he called his councillors round him. 

25 The wisest advised him to put himself into the hands of 
the English, from whom he had nothing worse to fear 
than deposition and confinement. But he attributed this 
suggestion to treachery. Others urged him to try the 
chance of war again. He approved the advice, and 
issued orders accordingly. But he wanted spirit to 



LOBD CLIVE. 71 

adhere even during one day to a manly resolution. He 
learned that Meer Jaffier had arrived; and his terrors 
became insupportable. Disguised in a mean dress, with 
a casket of jewels in his hand, he let himself down at 
night from a window of his palace, and, accompanied by 5 
only two attendants, embarked on the river for Patna. 

In a few days Clive arrived at Moorshedabad, escorted 
by two hundred English soldiers and three hundred 
sepoys. For his residence had been assigned a palace, 
which was surrounded by a garden so spacious that all 10 
the troops who accompanied him could conveniently en- 
camp within it. The ceremony of the installation of 
Meer Jaffier was instantly performed. Clive led the 
new Nabob to the seat of honor, placed him on it, pre- 
sented to him, after the immemorial fashion of the East, 15 
an offering of gold, and then, turning to the natives 
who filled the hall, congratulated them on the good 
fortune which had freed them from a tyrant. He was 
compelled on this occasion to use the services of an 
interpreter ; for it is remarkable that, long as he resided 20 
in India, intimately acquainted as he was with Indian 
politics and with the Indian character, and adored as he 
was by his Indian soldiery, he never learned to express 
himself with facility in any Indian language. He is 
said, indeed, to have been sometimes under the necessity 25 
of employing, in his intercourse with natives of India, 
the smattering of Portuguese which he had acquired, 
when a lad, in Brazil. 

The new sovereign was now called upon to fulfil the 
engagements into which he had entered with his allies. 



72 MACAULAT. 

A conference was held at the house of Jugget Seit, the 
great banker, for the purpose of making the necessary- 
arrangements. Omichund came thither, fully believing 
himself to stand in high favor of Clive, who, with dis- 

5 simulation surpassing even the dissimulation of Bengal, 
had up to that day treated him with undiminished kind- 
ness. The white treaty was produced and read. Clive 
then turned to Mr. Scrafton, one of the servants of the 
Company, and said in English, " It is now time to unde- 

10 ceive Omichund." — "Omichund," said Mr. Scrafton in 
Hindoostanee, "the red treaty is a trick. You are to 
have nothing." Omichund fell back insensible into the 
arms of his attendants. He revived, but his mind was 
irreparably ruined. Clive, who, though little troubled 

15 by scruples of conscience in his dealings with Indian 
politicians, was not inhuman, seems to have been touched. 
He saw Omichund a few days later, spoke to him kindly, 
advised him to make a pilgrimage to one of the great 
temples of India, in the hope that change of scene 

20 might restore his health, and was even disposed, not- 
withstanding all that had passed, again to employ him 
in the public service. But from the moment of that 
sudden shock, the unhappy man sank gradually into 
idiocy. He, who had formerly been distinguished by 

25 the strength of his understanding and the simplicity of 
his habits, now squandered the remains of his fortune 
on childish trinkets, and loved to exhibit himself dressed 
in rich garments and hung with precious stones. In 
this abject state he languished a few months, and then 
died. 



LOBD CLIVE. 73 

We should not think it necessary to offer any remarks 
for the purpose of directing the judgment of our readers, 
with respect to this transaction, had not Sir John Mal- 
colm undertaken to defend it in all its parts. He re- 
grets, indeed, that it was necessary to employ means so 5 
liable to abuse as forgery; but he will not admit that 
any blame attaches to those who deceived the deceiver. 
He thinks that the English were not bound to keep 
faith with one who kept no faith with them, and that, if 
they had fulfilled their engagements with the wily Ben- 10 
galee, so signal an example of successful treason would 
have produced a crowd of imitators. Now, we will not 
discuss this point on any rigid principles of morality. 
Indeed, it is quite unnecessary to do so ; for, looking at 
the question as a question of expediency in the lowest 15 
sense of the word, and using no arguments but such as 
Machiavelli might have employed in his conferences 
with Borgia, we are convinced that Clive was altogether 
in the wrong, and that he committed, not merely a crime, 
but a blunder. That honesty is the best policy is a 20 
maxim which we firmly believe to be generally correct, 
even with respect to the temporal interest of individuals j 
but with respect to societies, the rule is subject to still 
fewer exceptions, and that for this reason, that the life 
of societies is longer than the life of individuals. It is 25 
possible to mention men who have owed great worldly 
prosperity to breaches of private faith; but we doubt 
whether it be possible to mention a state which has on 
the whole been a gainer by a breach of public faith. 
The entire history of British India is an illustration of 



74 MACAULAY. 

the great truth, that it is not prudent to oppose perfidy 
to perfidy, and that the most efficient weapon with which 
men can encounter falsehood is truth. During a long 
course of years, the English rulers of India, surrounded 

5 by allies and enemies whom no engagement could bind, 
have generally acted with sincerity and uprightness; 
and the event has proved that sincerity and uprightness 
are wisdom. English valor and English intelligence 
have done less to extend and to preserve our Oriental 

10 empire than English veracity. All that we could have 
gained by imitating the doublings, the evasions, the 
fictions, the perjuries which have been employed against 
us is as nothing, when compared with what we ha.ve 
gained by being the one power in India on whose word 

15 reliance can be placed. ISTo oath which superstition can 
devise, no hostage however precious, inspires a hundredth 
part of the confidence which is produced by the "yea, 
yea," and " nay, nay," of a British envoy. No fastness, 
however strong by art or nature, gives to its inmates a 

20 security like that enjoyed by the chief who, passing 
through the territories of powerful and deadly enemies, 
is armed with the British guarantee. The mightiest 
princes of the East can scarcely, by the offer of enor- 
mous usury, draw forth any portion of the wealth which 

25 is concealed under the hearths of their subjects. The 
British Government offers little more than four per 
cent. ; and avarice hastens to bring forth tens of millions 
of rupees from its most secret repositories. A hostile 
monarch may promise mountains of gold to our sepoys, 
on condition that they will desert the standard of the 



LOBD CLIVE. 75 

Company. The Company promises only a moderate 
pension after a long service. But every sepoy knows 
that the promise of the Company will be kept : he knows 
that if he lives a hundred years his rice and salt are as 
secure as the salary of the Governor-General; and he 5 
knows that there is not another state in India which 
would not, in sj)ite of the most solemn vows, leave him 
to die of hunger in a ditch as soon as he had ceased to 
be useful. The greatest advantage which a government 
can possess is to be the one trustworthy government in 10 
the midst of governments which nobody can trust. This 
advantage we enjoy in Asia. Had we acted during the 
last two generations on the principles which Sir John 
Malcolm appears to have considered as sound ; had we, 
as often as we had to deal with people like Omichund, 15 
retaliated by lying and forging, and breaking faith, after 
their fashion, — it is our firm belief that no courage or 
capacity could have upheld our empire. 

Sir John Malcolm admits that Clive's breach of faith 
could be justified only by the strongest necessity. As 20 
we think that breach of faith not onl}^ unnecessary, but 
most inexpedient, we need hardly say that we altogether 
condemn it. 

Omichund was not the only victim of the revolution. 
Surajah Dowlah was taken a few days after his flight, 25 
and was brought before Meer JafEer. There he flung 
himself on the ground in convulsions of fear, and with 
tears and loud cries implored the mercy which he had 
never shown. Meer Jaffier hesitated; but his son 
Meeran, a youth of seventeen, who in feebleness of 



76 MACAULAT, 

brairij and savageness of nature, greatly resembled the 
wretched captive, was implacable. Surajah Dowlah was 
led into a secret chamber, to which, in a short time, the 
ministers of death were sent. In this act the English 

. 5 bore no j^art ; and Meer Jaffier understood so much of 
their feelings, that he thought it necessary to apologize 
to them for having avenged them on their most malig- 
nant enemy. 

The shower of wealth now fell copiously on the Com- 

10 pany and its servants. A sum of eight hundred thou- 
sand pounds sterling, in coined silver, was sent down 
the river from Moorshedabad to Fort William. The fleet 
which conveyed this treasure, consisted of more than a 
hundred boats, and performed its triumphal voyage 

15 with flags flying and music playing. Calcutta, which a 
few months before had been desolate, was now more 
prosperous than ever. Trade revived ; and the signs of 
affluence appeared in every English house. As to Clive, 
there was no limit to his acquisitions but his own mod- 

20 eration. The treasury of Bengal was thrown open to 
him. There were piled up, after the usage of Indian 
princes, immense masses of coin, among which might 
not seldom be detected the florins and byzants with 
which, before any European ship had turned the Cape 

25 of Good Hope, the Venetians purchased the stuffs and 
spices of the East. Clive walked between heaps of 
gold and silver, crowned with rubies and diamonds, and 
was at liberty to help himself. He accepted between 
two and three hundred thousand pounds. 

The pecuniary transactions between Meer Ja£B.er and 



LORD CLIVK 77 

Clive, were, sixteen years later, condemned by the pub- 
lic voice, and severely criticised in Parliament. They 
are vehemently defended by Sir John Malcolm. The 
accusers of the victorious general represented his gains 
as the wages of corruption, or as plunder extorted at the 5 
point of the sword from a helpless ally. The biographer, 
on the other hand, considers these great acquisitions as 
free gifts, honorable alike to the donor and to the re- 
ceiver, and compares them to the rewards bestowed by 
foreign powers on Marlborough, on ISTelson, and on Wei- 10 
lington. It had always, he says, been customary in 
the East, to give and receive presents ; and there was, 
as yet, no Act of Parliament positively prohibiting Eng- 
lish functionaries in India from profiting by this Asiatic 
usage. This reasoning, we own, does not quite satisfy 15 
us. We do not suspect Clive of selling the interests of 
his employers or his country ; but we cannot acquit him 
of having done what, if not in itself evil, was yet of 
evil example. Nothing is more clear than that a general 
ought to be the servant of his own government, and of no 20 
other. It follows that whatever rewards he receives for 
his services ought to be given either by his own govern- 
ment, or with the full knowledge and approbation of his 
own government. This rule ought to be strictly main- 
tained, even with respect to the merest bawble, with re- 25 
spect to a cross, a medal, or a yard of colored ribbon. 
But how can any government be well served, if those who 
command its forces are at liberty, without its permission, 
without its privity, to accept princely fortunes from its 
allies ? It is idle to say that there was then no Act of 



78 MACAULAT. 

Parliament prohibiting the practice of taking presents 
from Asiatic sovereigns. It is not on the Act which 
was passed at a later period for the purpose of prevent- 
ing any such taking of presents, but on grounds which 

5 were valid before that Act was passed, on grounds of 
common law and common sense, that we arraign the con- 
duct of Clive. There is no act that we know of, prohib- 
iting the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs from 
being in the pay of continental powers. But it is not 

10 the less true, that a Secretary who should receive a 
secret pension from France, would grossly violate his 
duty, and would deserve severe punishment. Sir John 
Malcolm compares the conduct of Clive with that of the 
Duke of Wellington. Suppose, — and we beg pardon 

15 for putting such a supposition even for the sake of argu- 
ment, — that the Duke of Wellington had, after the 
campaign of 1815, and while he commanded the army of 
occupation in France, privately accepted two hundred 
thousand pounds from Louis the Eighteenth, as a mark 

20 of gratitude for the great services which his G-race had 
rendered to the House of Bourbon; what would be 
thought of such a transaction ? Yet the statute-book 
no more forbids the taking of presents in Europe now, 
than it forbade the taking of presents in Asia then. 

25 At the same time, it must be admitted that, in Olive's 
case, there were many extenuating circumstances. He 
considered himself as the general, not of the Crown, but 
of the Company. The Company had, by implication at 
least, authorized its agents to enrich themselves by 
means of the liberality of the native princes, and by 



LORD CLIVE. 79 

other means still more objectionable. It was hardly to 
be expected that the servant should entertain stricter 
notions of his duty than were entertained by his masters. 
Though Clive did not distinctly acquaint his employers 
with what had taken place and request their sanction, 5 
he did not, on the other hand, by studied concealment, 
show that he was conscious o£ having done wrong. On 
the contrary, he avowed with the greatest openness that 
the Nabob's bounty had raised him to affluence. Lastly, 
though we think that he ought not in such a way to 10 
have taken anything, we must admit that he deserves 
praise for having taken so little. He accepted twenty 
lacs of rupees. It would have cost him only a word to 
make the twenty forty. It was a very easy exercise of 
virtue to declaim in England against Olive's rapacity ; but 15 
not one in a hundred of his accusers would have shown 
so much self-command in the treasury of Moorshedabad. 
Meer Jaffier could be upheld on the throne only by 
the hand which had ]3laced him on it. He was not, 
indeed, a mere boy ; nor had he been so unfortunate as 20 
to be born in the purple. He was not therefore quite so 
imbecile or cxuite so depraved as his predecessor had been. 
But he had none of the talents or virtues which his post 
required ; and his son and heir, Meeran, was another 
Surajah Dowlah. The recent revolution had unsettled 25 
the minds of men. Many chiefs were in open insurrec- 
tion against the new Nabob. The viceroy of the rich 
■ and powerful province of Oude, who, like the other vice- 
roys of the Mogul, was now in truth an independent 
sovereign, menaced Bengal with invasion. iNTothing but 



80 3fACAULAY. 

the talents and authority of Clive could support the 
tottering government. While things were in this state, 
a ship arrived with despatches which had been written 
at the India House before the news of the battle of 
5 Plassey had reached London. The Directors had deter- 
mined to place the English settlements in Bengal under 
a government constituted in the most cumbrous and 
absurd manner ; and, to make the matter worse, no place 
in the arrangement was assigned to Clive. The persons 

10 who were selected to form this new government, greatly 
to their honor, took on themselves the responsibility of 
disobeying these preposterous orders, and invited Clive 
to exercise the supreme authority. He consented ; and 
it soon appeared that the servants of the Company had 

15 only anticipated the wishes of their employers. The 
Directors, on receiving news of Clive's brilliant success, 
instantly appointed him governor of their possessions in 
Bengal, with the highest marks of gratitude and es- 
teem. His power was now boundless, and far surpassed 

20 even that which Dupleix had attained in the south of 
India. Meer Jaffier regarded him with slavish awe. 
On one occasion, the Nabob spoke with severity to a 
native chief of high rank, whose followers had been 
engaged in a brawl with some of the Company's sepoys. 

25 " Are you yet to learn," he said, " who that Colonel Clive 
is, and in what station God has placed him ? " The 
chief, who, as a famous jester and an old friend of Meer 
Jaffier, could venture to take liberties, answered, "I 
affront the Colonel ! I, who never get up in the morning 
without making three low bows to his jackass ! " This 



LORD CLIVE. 81 

was hardly an exaggeration. Europeans and natives 
were alike at Olive's feet. The English regarded him as 
the only man who could force Meer Jaffier to keep his 
engagements with them. Meer Jaffier regarded him as 
the only man who could protect the new dynasty against 5 
turbulent subjects and encroaching neighbors. 

It is but justice to say that Olive used his power ably 
and vigorously for the advantage of his country. He 
sent forth an expedition against the tract lying to the 
north of the Oarnatic. In this tract the Erench still 10 
had the ascendency, and it was important to dislodge 
them. The conduct of the enterprise was intrusted to 
an officer of the name of Eorde, who was then little 
known, but in whom the keen eye of the governor had 
detected military talents of a high order. The success 15 
of the expedition was rapid and splendid. 

While a considerable part of the army of Bengal was 
thus engaged at a distance, a new and formidable danger 
menaced the western frontier. The Great Mogul was a 
prisoner at Delhi in the hands of a subject. His eldest 20 
son, named Shah Alum, destined to be, during many 
years, the sport of adverse fortune, and to be a tool in 
the hands, first of the Mahrattas, and then of the Eng- 
lish, had fled from the palace of his father. His birth 
was still revered in India. Some powerful princes, the 25 
Nabob of Oude in particular, were inclined to favor him. 
Shah Alum found it easy to draw to his standard great 
numbers of the military adventurers with whom every 
part of the country swarmed. An army of forty thou- 
sand men, of various races and religions, MahrattaS; 



82 MACAULAY. 

Eohillas, Jauts, and Afghans, was speedily assembled 
round him ; and he formed the design of overthrowing 
the upstart whom the English had elevated to a throne, 
and of establishing his own authority throughout Bengal, 
5 Orissa, and Bahar. 

Meer Jaffier's terror was extreme ; and the only expe- 
dient which occurred to him was to purchase, by the 
payment of a large sum of money, an accommodation 
with Shah Alum. This expedient had been repeatedly 

10 eniployed by those who, before him, had ruled the rich 
and unwarlike provinces near the mouth of the Ganges. 
But Clive treated the suggestion with a scorn worthy of 
his strong sense and dauntless courage. "If you do 
this," he wrote, " you will have the Nabob of Oude, the 

15 Mahrattas, and many more, come from all parts of the 
confines of your country, who will bully you out of 
money till you have none left in your treasury. I beg 
your Excellency will rely on the fidelity of the English, 
and of those troops which are attached to you." He 

20 wrote in a similar strain to the governor of Patna, a 
brave native soldier whom he highly esteemed. " Come 
to no terms ; defend your city to the last. Eest assured 
that the English are stanch and firm friends, and that 
they never desert a cause in which they have once taken 

25 a part." 

He kept his word. Shah Alum had invested Patna, 
and was on the point of proceeding to storm, when he 
learned that the colonel was advancing by forced marches. 
The whole army which was approaching consisted of 
only four hundred and fifty Europeans and two thousand 



LOBD CLIVE. 83 

five hundred sepoys. But Clive and his Englishmen 
were now objects of dread over all the East. As soon as 
his advanced guard appeared, the besiegers fled before 
him. A few French adventurers who were about the 
person of the prince advised him to try the chance of 5 
battle; but in vain. In a few days this great army, 
which had been regarded with so much uneasiness by 
the court of Moorshedabad, melted away before the mere 
terror of the British name. 

The conqueror returned in triumph to Eort William. 10 
The joy of Meer Jaffier was as unbounded as his fears 
had been, and led him to bestow on his preserver a 
princely token of gratitude. The quit-rent which the 
East India Company were bound to pay to the Nabob 
for the extensive lands held by them to the south of 15 
Calcutta amounted to near thirty thousand pounds ster- 
ling a year. The whole of this splendid estate, sufficient 
to support with dignity the highest rank of the British 
peerage, was now conferred on Clive for life. 

This present we think Clive justified in accepting. It 20 
was a present which, from its very nature, could be no 
secret. In fact, the Company itself was his tenant, and, 
by its acquiescence, signified its approbation of Meer 
Jaffier' s grant. 

But the gratitude of Meer Jaffier did not last long. 25 
He had for some time felt that the powerful ally who 
had set him up might pull him down, and had been look- 
ing round for support against the formidable strength by 
which he had himself been hitherto supported. He 
knew that it would be impossible to find among the 



84 MACAULAT, 

natives of India any force wMcli would look the colonel's 
little army in the face. The French power in Bengal 
was extinct. But the fame of the Dutch had anciently 
been great in the Eastern seas ; and it was not yet dis- 

5 tinctly known in Asia how much the power of Holland 
had declined in Europe. Secret communications passed 
between the court of Moorshedabad and the Dutch 
factory at Chinsurah ; and urgent letters were sent from 
Chinsurah, exhorting the government of Batavia to fit 

10 out an expedition which might balance the power of the 
English in Bengal. The authorities of Batavia, eager to 
extend the influence of their country, and still more 
eager to obtain for themselves a share of the wealth 
which had recently raised so many English adventurers 

15 to opulence, equipped a powerful armament. Seven 
large ships from Java arrived unexpectedly in the 
Hoogley. The military force on board amounted to 
fifteen hundred men, of whom about one-half were 
Europeans. The enterprise was well timed. Clive had 

20 sent such large detachments to oppose the French in the 
Carnatic that his army was now inferior in number to 
that of the Dutch. He knew that Meer Jaffier secretly 
favored the invaders. He knew that he took on himself 
a serious responsibility if he attacked the forces of a 

25 friendly power ; that the English ministers could not 
wish to see a war with Holland added to that in which 
they were already engaged with France ; that they might 
disavow his acts ; that they might punish him. He had 
recently remitted a great part of his fortune to Europe, 
through the Dutch East India Company j and he had there- 



LOBB CLIVE. 85 

fore a strong interest in avoiding any quarrel But he 
was satisfied, that if he suffered the Batavian armament to 
pass up the river, and to join the garrison of Chinsurah, 
Meer Jafiier would throw himself into the arms of these 
new allies, and that the English ascendency in Bengal 5 
would be exposed to most serious danger. He took his 
resolution with characteristic boldness, and was most 
ably seconded by his ofl&cers, particularly by Colonel 
Forde, to whom the most important part of the opera- 
tions was intrusted. The Dutch attempted to force a 10 
passage. The English encountered them both by land 
and water. On both elements the enemy had a great 
superiority of force. On both they were signally de- 
feated. Their ships were taken. Their troops were 
put to a total rout. Almost all the European soldiers, 15 
who constituted the main strength of the invading army, 
were killed or taken. The conquerors sat down before 
Chinsurah; and the chiefs of that settlement, now 
thoroughly humbled, consented to the terms which Clive 
dictated. They engaged to build no fortifications, and 20 
to raise no troops beyond a small force necessary for the 
police of their factories ; and it was distinctly provided 
that any violation of these covenants should be punished 
with instant expulsion from Bengal. 

Three months after this great victory, Clive sailed for 25 
England. At home, honors and rewards awaited him, 
not indeed equal to his claims or to his ambition, but still 
. such as, when his age, his rank in the army, and his 
original place in society are considered, must be pro- 
nounced rare and splendid. He was raised to the Irish 



86 MACAULAT. 

peerage, and encouraged to expect an English, title. 
George the Third, who had just ascended the throne, 
received him with great distinction. The ministers paid 
him marked attention ; and Pitt, whose influence in the 
5 House of Commons and in the country was unbounded, 
was eager to mark his regard for one whose exploits had 
contributed so much to the lustre of that memorable 
period. The great orator had already in Parliament 
described Olive as a heaven-born general, as a man who, 

10 bred to the labor of the desk, had displayed a military 
genius which might excite the admiration of the King 
of Prussia. There were then no reporters in the gallery ; 
but these words, emphatically spoken By the first states- 
man of the age, had passed from mouth to mouth, had 

15 been transmitted to Clive in Bengal, and had greatly 
delighted and flattered him. Indeed, since the death of 
Wolfe, Clive was the only English general of whom his 
countrymen had much reason to be proud. The Duke 
of Cumberland had been generally unfortunate ; and his 

20 single victory, having been gained over his countrymen, 
and used with merciless severity, had been more fatal to 
his popularity than his many defeats. Conway, versed 
in the learning of his profession, and personally cour- 
ageous, wanted vigor and capacity. Granby, honest, 

25 generous, and as brave as a lion, had neither science nor 
genius. Sackville, inferior in knowledge and abilities 
to none of his contemporaries, had incurred, unjustly as 
we believe, the imputation most fatal to the character 
of a soldier. It was under the command of a foreign 
general that the British had triumphed at Minden and 



LOBD CLIVE. 87 

Warburg. The people, therefore, as was natural, greeted 
with, pride and delight a captain of their own, whose 
native courage and self-taught skill had placed him on a 
level with the great tacticians of Germany. 

The wealth of Clive was such as enabled him to vie 5 
with the first grandees of England. There remains 
proof that he had remitted more than a hundred and 
eighty thousand pounds through the Dutch East India 
Company, and more than forty thousand pounds through 
the English Company. The amount which he had sent lo 
home through private houses was also considerable. 
He had invested great sums in jewels, then a very com- 
mon mode of remittance from India. His purchases of 
diamonds, at Madras alone, amounted to twenty-five 
thousand pounds. Besides a great mass of ready money, 15 
he had his Indian estate, valued by himself at twenty- 
seven thousand a year. His whole annual income, in 
the opinion of Sir John Malcolm, who is desirous to 
state it as low as possible, exceeded forty thousand 
pounds ; and incomes of forty thousand pounds at the 20 
time of the accession of George the Third were at least 
as rare as incomes of a hundred thousand pounds now. 
We may safely affirm that no Englishman who started 
with nothing has ever, in any line of life, created such 
a fortune at the early age of thirty-four. 25 

It would be unjust not to add that Clive made a 
creditable use of his riches. As soon as the battle of 
■Plassey had laid the foundation of his fortune, he sent 
ten thousand pounds to his sisters, bestowed as much 
more on other poor friends and relations, ordered his 



88 MACAULAY. 

agent to pay eight hundred a year to his parents, and to 
insist that they should keep a carriage, and settled five 
hundred a year on his old commander Lawrence, whose 
means were very slender. The whole sum which Clive 
5 expended in this manner may be calculated at fifty 
thousand pounds. 

He now set himself to cultivate Parliamentary inter- 
est. His purchases of land' seem to have been made in 
a great measure with that view, and, after the general 

10 election of 1761, he found himself in the House of 
Commons, at the head of a body of dependents whose 
support must have been important to any administration. 
In English politics, however, he did not take a promi- 
nent part. His first attachments, as we have seen, were 

15 to Mr. Fox; at a later period he was attracted by the 
genius and success of Mr. Pitt ; but finally he connected 
himself in the closest manner with George Grenville. 
Early in the session of 1764, when the illegal and im- 
politic persecution of that worthless demagogue Wilkes 

20 had strongly excited the public mind, the town was 
amused by an anecdote, which we have seen in some 
unpublished memoirs of Horace Walpole. Old Mr. 
Eichard Clive who, since his son's elevation, had been 
introduced into society for which his former habits had 

25 not well fitted him, presented himself at the levee. The 
King asked him where Lord Clive was. " He will be in 
town very soon," said the old gentleman, loud enough to 
be heard by the whole circle, "and then your Majesty 
will have another vote." 

But in truth all Clive's views were directed towards 



LOBD CLIVE. 89 

the country in whicli he had so eminently distinguished 
himself as a soldier and a statesman; and it was by 
considerations relating to India that his conduct as a 
public man in England was regulated. The power of 
the Company, though an anomaly, is in our time, we are 5 
firmly persuaded, a beneficial anomaly. In the time of 
Clive, it was not merely an anomaly, but a nuisance. 
There was no Board of Control. The Directors were, 
for the most part, mere traders, ignorant of general 
politics, ignorant of the peculiarities of the empire 10 
which had strangely become subject to them. The 
Court of Proprietors, wherever it chose to interfere, 
was able to have its way. That court was more numer- 
ous, as well as more powerful, than at present ; for then 
every share of five hundred jpounds conferred a vote. 15 
The meetings were large, stormy, even riotous, the de- 
bates indecently virulent. All the turbulence of a West- 
minster election, all the trickery and corruption of a 
Grampound election, disgraced the proceedings of this 
assembly on questions of the most solemn importance. 20 
Fictitious votes were manufactured on a gigantic scale. 
Clive himself laid out a hundred thousand pounds in 
the purchase of stock, which he then divided among 
nominal proprietors on whom he could depend, and 
whom he brought down in his train to every discussion 25 
and every ballot. Others did the same, though not to 
quite so enormous an extent. 

The interest taken by the public of England in Indian 
questions was then far greater than at present, and the 
reason is obvious. At present a writer enters the ser- 



90 MACAULAY. 

vice young ; lie climbs slowly ; lie is fortunate if, at 
forty-five, lie can return to liis country with, an annuity 
of a thousand a year, and with savings amounting to 
thirty thousand pounds. A great quantity of wealth is 

5 made by English functionaries in India ; but no single 
functionary makes a very large fortune, and what is 
made is slowly, hardly, and honestly earned. Only four 
or five high political ofiices are reserved for public men 
from England. The residences, the secretaryships, the 

10 seats in the boards of revenue and in the Sudder courts 
are all filled by men who have given the best years of 
life to the service of the Company ; nor can any talents 
however splendid, or any connections however powerful, 
obtain those lucrative posts for any person who has not 

15 entered by the regular door, and mounted by the regular 
gradations. Seventy years ago, less money was brought 
home from the East than in our time. But it was 
divided among a very much smaller number of persons, 
and immense sums were often accumulated in a few 

20 months. Any Englishman, whatever his age might be, 
might hope to be one of the lucky emigrants. If he 
made a good speech, in Leadenhall Street, or published 
a clever pamphlet in defence of the chairman, he might 
be sent out in the Company's service, and might return 

25 in three or four years as ricb as Pigot or as Clive. 
Thus the India House was a lottery-office, which invited 
everybody to take a chance, and held out ducal fortunes 
as the prizes destined for the lucky few. As soon as it 
was known that there was a part of the world where a 
lieutenant-colonel had one morning received as a present 



LORD CLIVE. 91 

an estate as large as that of the Earl of Bath or the 
Marquess of Eockingham, and where it seemed that 
such a trifle as ten or twenty thousand pounds was to 
be had by any British functionary for the asking, society 
began to exhibit all the symptoms of the South Sea 5 
year, a feverish excitement, an ungovernable impatience 
to be rich, a contempt for slow, sure, and moderate gains. 

At the head of the preponderating party in the India 
House, had long stood a powerful, able, and ambitious 
director of the name of Sulivan. He had conceived a 10 
strong jealousy of Clive, and remembered with bitterness 
the audacity with which the late governor of Bengal had 
repeatedly set at naught the authority of the distant 
Directors of the Company. An apparent reconciliation 
took place after Olive's arrival; but enmity remained 15 
deeply rooted in the hearts of both. The whole body 
of Directors was then chosen annually. At the election 
of 1763, Clive attempted to break down the power of 
the dominant faction. The contest was carried on with 
a violence which he describes as tremendous. Sulivan 20 
was victorious, and hastened to take his revenge. The 
grant of rent which Clive had received from Meer Jaffier 
was, in the opinion of the best English lawyers, valid. 
It had been made by exactly the same authority from 
which the Company had received their chief possessions 25 
in Bengal, and the Company had long acquiesced in it. 
The Directors, however, most unjustly determined to 
confiscate it, and Clive was forced to file a bill in Chan- 
cery against them. 

But a great and sudden turn in affairs was at hand. 



92 MACAULAT. 

Every ship from Bengal had for some time brought 
alarming tidings. The internal misgovernment of the 
province had reached such a point that it could go no fur- 
ther. What, indeed, was to be expected from a body of 

5 public servants exposed to temptation such that, as Clive 
once said, flesh and blood could not bear it, armed with 
irresistible power, and responsible only to the corrupt, 
turbulent, distracted, ill-informed Company, situated at 
such a distance that the average interval between the 

10 sending of a despatch and the receipt of an answer was 
above a year and a half ? Accordingly, during the five 
years which followed the departure of Clive from Bengal, 
the misgovernment of the English was carried to a point 
such as seems hardly compatible with the very existence 

15 of society. The Eoman proconsul, who, in a year or 
two, squeezed out of a province the means of rearing 
marble palaces and baths on the shores of Campania, of 
drinking from amber, of feasting on singing birds, of 
exhibiting armies of gladiators and flocks of camelo- 

20 pards ; the Spanish viceroy, who, leaving behind him 
the curses of Mexico or Lima, entered Madrid with a 
long train of gilded coaches, and of sumpter-horses 
trapped and shod with silver, were now outdone. Cru- 
elty, indeed, properly so called, was not among the vices 

25 of the servants of the Company. But cruelty itself 
could hardly have produced greater evils than sprang 
from their unprincipled eagerness to be rich. They 
pulled down their creature, Meer Jaffier. They set up 
in his place another Nabob, named Meer Cossim. But 
Meer Cossim had parts and a willj and, though su£S.- 



LOBD CLIVE. 9^ 

ciently inclined to oppress his subjects himself, he could 
not bear to see them ground to the dust by oppressions 
which yielded him no profit, nay, which destroyed his 
revenue in the very source. The English accordingly 
pulled down Meer Cossim, and set up Meer Jaffier again ; 5 
and Meer Cossim, after revenging himself by a massacre 
surpassing in atrocity that of the Black Hole, fled to 
the dominions of the Nabob of Oude. At every one of 
these revolutions, the new prince divided among his 
foreign masters whatever could be scraped together in 10 
the treasury of his fallen predecessor. The immense 
population of his dominions was given up as a prey to 
those who had made him a sovereign, and who could 
unmake him. The servants of the Company obtained, 
not for their employers, but for themselves, a monopoly 15 
of almost the whole internal trade. They forced the 
natives to buy dear and to sell cheap. They insulted 
with impunity the tribunals, the police, and the fiscal 
authorities of the country. They covered with their pro- 
tection a set of native dependents who ranged through 20 
the provinces, spreading desolation and terror wherever 
they appeared. Every servant of a British factor was 
armed with all the power of his master ; and his master 
was armed with all the power of the Company. Enor- 
mous fortunes were thus rapidly accumulated at Calcutta, 25 
while thirty millions of human beings were reduced to 
the extremity of wretchedness. They had been accus- 
tomed to live under tyranny, but never under tyranny 
like this. They found the little finger of the Company 
thicker than the loins of Surajah Dowlah. Under their 



94 MACAULAY. 

old masters they had at least one resource : when the 
evil became insupportable, the people rose and pulled 
down the government. But the English government was 
not to be so shaken oif. That government, oppressive 

5 as the most oppressive form of barbarian despotism, was 
strong with all the strength of civilization. It resembled 
the government of evil Genii, rather than the govern- 
ment of human tyrants. Even despair could not inspire 
the soft Bengalee with courage to confront men of Eng- 

10 lish breed, the hereditary nobility of mankind, whose 
skill and valor had so often triumphed in spite of ten- 
fold odds. The unhappy race never attempted resist- 
ance. Sometimes they submitted in patient misery. 
Sometimes they fled from the white man, as their fathers 

15 had been used to fly from the Mahratta ; and the palan- 
quin of the English traveller was often carried through 
silent villages and towns, which the report of his 
approach had made desolate. 

The foreign lords of Bengal were naturally objects of 

20 hatred to all the neighboring powers ; and to all the 
haughty race presented a dauntless front. The English 
armies, everywhere outnumbered, were everywhere vic- 
torious. A succession of commanders, formed in the 
school of Clive, still maintained the fame of their coun- 

25 try. "It must be acknowledged," says the Mussulman 
historian of those times, " that this nation's presence of 
mind, firmness of temper, and undaunted bravery, are 
past all question. They join the most resolute courage 
to the most cautious prudence ; nor have they their 
equals in the art of ranging themselves in battle array 



LOBD CLIVE. 95 

and fighting in order. If to so many military qualifica- 
tions they knew how to join the arts of government, if 
they exerted as much ingenuity and solicitude in relieving 
the people of God, as they do in whatever concerns their 
military affairs, no nation in the world would be prefer- 5 
able to them, or worthier of command. But the people 
under their dominion groan everywhere, and are reduced 
to poverty and distress. Oh Grod ! come to the assist- 
ance of thine afflicted servants, and deliver them from 
the oppressions which they suffer." lo 

It was impossible, however, that even the military 
establishment should long continue exempt from the 
vices which pervaded every other part of the govern- 
ment. Eapacity, luxury, and the spirit of insubordina- 
tion spread from the civil service to the officers of the 15 
army, and from the officers to the soldiers. The evil 
continued to grow till every messroom became the seat 
of conspiracy and cabal, and till the sejjoys could be 
kept in order only by wholesale executions. 

At length the state of things in Bengal began to excite 20 
uneasiness at home. A succession of revolutions ; a dis- 
organized administration ; the natives pillaged, yet the 
Company not enriched 5 every fleet bringing back fortu- 
nate adventurers who were able to purchase manors and 
to build stately dwellings, yet bringing back also alarm- 25 
ing accounts of the financial prospects of the govern- 
ment ; war on the frontiers ; disaffection in the army ; 
the national character disgraced by excesses resembling 
those of Verres and Pizarro ; — such was the spectacle 
which dismayed those who were conversant with Indian 



96 MACAULAT. 

affairs. The general cry was that Clive, and Clive alone, 
could save the empire which he had founded. 

This feeling manifested itself in the strongest manner 
at a very full General Court of Proprietors. Men of all 

5 parties, forgetting their feuds and trembling for their 
dividends, exclaimed that Clive was the man whom the 
crisis required, that the oppressive proceeding which 
had been adopted respecting his estate ought to be 
dropped, and that he ought to be entreated to return to 

10 India. 

Clive rose. As to his estate, he said, he would make 
such propositions to the Directors as would, he trusted, 
lead to an amicable settlement. But there was a still 
greater difficulty. It was proper to tell them that he 

15 never would undertake the government of Bengal while 
his enemy Sulivan was chairman of the Company. The 
tumult was violent. Sulivan could scarcely obtain a 
hearing. An overwhelming majority of the assembly 
was on Clive's side. Sulivan wished to try the result 

20 of a ballot. But, according to the by-laws of the Com- 
pany, there can be no ballot except on a requisition 
signed by nine proprietors ; and, though hundreds were 
present, nine persons could not be found to set their 
hands to such a requisition. 

25 Clive was, in consequence, nominated Governor and 
Commander-in-chief of the British possessions in Ben- 
gal. But he adhered to his declaration, and refused to 
enter on his office till the event of the next election of 
Directors should be known. The contest was obstinate ; 
but Clive triumphed. Sulivan, lately absolute master of 



LOBD CLIVK 97 

the India House, was witliin a Vote of losing Ms own 
seat ; and both the chairm?cn and the deputy-chairman 
were friends of the new governor. 

Such were the circumstances under which Lord Clive 
sailed for the third and last time to India. In May, 5 
1765, he reached Calcutta; and he found the whole 
machine of government even more fearfully disorganized 
than he had anticipated. Meer Jaffier, who had some 
time before lost his eldest son, Meeran, had died while 
Clive was on his voyage out. The English functionaries 10 
at Calcutta had already received from home strict orders 
not to accept presents from the native princes. But, 
eager for gain, and unaccustomed to respect the com- 
mands of their distant, ignorant, and negligent masters, 
they again set up the throne of Bengal to sale. About 15 
one hundred and forty thousand pounds sterling was 
distributed among nine of the most powerful servants of 
the Company; and, in consideration of this bribe, an 
infant son of the deceased Nabob was placed on the seat 
of his father. The news of the ignominious bargain met 20 
Clive on his arrival. In a private letter, written imme- 
diately after his landing, to an intimate friend, he 
poured out his feelings in language which, proceeding 
from a man so daring, so resolute, and so little given to 
theatrical display of sentiment, seems to us singularly 25 
touching. "Alas !" he says, "how is the English name 
sunk ! I could not avoid paying the tribute of a few 
tears to the departed and lost fame of the British nation 
— irrecoverably so, I fear. However, I do declare, by 
that great Being who is the searcher of all hearts, and 



98 * MACAULAT. 

to whom we must be accountable if tbere be a hereafter, 
that I am come out with a mind superior to all corrup- 
tion, and that I am determined to destroy these great 
and growing evils, or perish in the attempt.'^ 
5 The Council met, and Clive stated to them his full 
determination to make a thorough reform, and to use 
for that purpose the whole of the ample authority, civil 
and military, which had been confided to him. John- 
stone, one of the boldest and worst men in the assembly, 

10 made some show of opposition. Clive interrupted him, 
and haughtily demanded whether he meant to question 
the power of the new government. Johnstone was 
cowed, and disclaimed any such intention. All the 
faces round the board grew long and pale; and not 

15 another syllable of dissent was uttered. 

Clive redeemed his pledge. He remained in India 
about a year and a half ; and in that short time effected 
one of the most extensive, diflB.cult, and salutary reforms 
that ever was accomplished by any statesman. This 

20 was the part of his life on which he afterwards looked 
back with most pride. He had it in his power to triple 
his already splendid fortune ; to connive at abuses while 
pretending to remove them ; to conciliate the good will 
of all the English in Bengal, by giving up to their 

25 rapacity a helpless and timid race, who knew not where 
lay the island which sent forth their oppressors, and 
whose complaints had little chance of being heard 
across fifteen thousand miles of ocean. He knew that 
if he applied himself in earnest to the work of reforma- 
tion, he should raise every bad passion in arms against 



LOBB CLIVE. 99 

Mm. He knew liow unscrupulous, how implacable, 
would be the hatred of those ravenous adventurers 
who, having counted on accumulating in a few months 
fortunes sufficient to support peerages, should find all 
their hopes frustrated. But he had chosen the good 5 
part ; and he called up all the forces of his mind for a 
battle far harder than that of Plassey. At first success 
seemed hopeless ; but soon all obstacles began to bend 
before that iron courage and that vehement will. The 
receiving of presents from the natives was rigidly pro- lo 
hibited. The private trade of the servants of the Com- 
pany was put down. The whole settlement seemed to 
be set, as one man, against these measures. But the 
inexorable governor declared that, if he could not find 
support at Fort William, he would procure it elsewhere, 15 
and sent for some civil servants from Madras to assist 
him in carrying on the administration. The most fac- 
tious of his opponents he turned out of their offices. 
The rest submitted to what was inevitable; and in a 
very short time all resistance was quelled. 20 

But Clive was far too wise a man not to see that the 
recent abuses were partly to be ascribed to a cause which 
could not fail to produce similar abuses, as soon as the 
pressure of his strong hand was withdrawn. The Com- 
pany had followed a mistaken policy with respect to the 25 
remuneration of its servants. The salaries were too low 
to afford even those indulgences which are necessary 
to the health and comfort of Europeans in a tropical 
climate. To lay by a rupee from such scanty pay was 
impossible. It could not be supposed that men of even 



lOO MACAULAT. 

average abilities would consent to pass the best years of 
life in exile under a burning sun, for no other considera- 
• tion than these stinted wages. It had accordingly been 
understood, from a very early period, that the Company's 
5 agents were at liberty to enrich themselves by their pri- 
vate trade. This practice had been seriously injurious 
to the commercial interests of the corporation. That 
very intelligent observer. Sir Thomas Eoe, in the reign 
of James the Eirst, strongly urged the Directors to apply 

10 a remedy to the abuse. " Absolutely prohibit the private 
trade," said he ; " for your business will be better done. 
I know this is harsh. Men profess they come not for 
bare wages. But you will take away this plea if you 
give great wages to their content ; and then you know 

15 what you part from." 

In spite of his excellent advice, the Company adhered 
to the old system, paid low salaries, and connived at the 
indirect gains of the agents. The pay of a member of 
Council was only three hundred pounds a year. Yet it 

20 was notorious that such a functionary could not live in 
India for less than ten times that sum ; and it could not 
be expected that he would be content to live even 
handsomely in India without laying up something 
against the time of his return to England. This sys- 

25 tem, before the concjuest of Bengal, might affect the 
amount of the dividends payable to the proprietors, but 
could do little harm in any other way. But the Com- 
pany was now a ruling body. Its servants might still 
be called factors, junior merchants, senior merchants. 
But they were in truth proconsuls, propraetors, procura- 



LOBD CLIVE. 101 

tors of extensive regions. They had immense power. 
Their regular pay was universally admitted to be insuffi- 
cient. They were, by the ancient usage of the service, 
and by the implied permission of their employers, war- 
ranted in enriching themselves by indirect means ; and 5 
this had been the origin of the frightful oppression 
and corruption which had desolated Bengal. Clive saw 
clearly that it was absurd to give men power, and to 
require them to live in penury. He justly concluded 
that no reform could be effectual which should not be 10 
coupled with a x^lan for liberally remunerating the civil 
servants of the Company. The Directors, he knew, were 
not disposed to sanction any increase of the salaries out 
of their own treasury. The only course which remained 
open to the governor was one which exposed him to 15 
much misrepresentation, but which we think him fully 
justified in adopting. He appropriated to the support 
of the service the monopoly of salt, which has formed, 
down to our own time, a principal head of Indian reve- 
nue ; and he divided the proceeds according to a scale 20 
which seems to have been not unreasonably fixed. He 
was, in consequence, accused by his enemies, and has 
been accused by historians, of disobeying his instruc- 
tions, of violating his promises, of authorizing that very 
abuse which it was his special mission to destroy, 25 
namely, the trade of the Company's servants. But 
every discerning a.nd impartial judge will admit, that 
there was really nothing in common between the system 
which he set up and that which he was sent to destroy. 
The monopoly of salt had been a source of revenue to 



102 MACAULAY, 

the governments of India before Clive was born. It 
continued to be so long after his death. The civil ser- 
vants were clearly entitled to a maintenance out of the 
revenue ; and all that Clive did was to charge a particu- 

5 lar portion of the revenue with their maintenance. He 
thus, while he put an end to the practices by which 
gigantic fortunes had been rapidly accumulated, gave to 
every British functionary employed in the East the 
means of slowly, but surely, acquiring a competence. 

10 Yet, such is the injustice of mankind, that none of 
those acts which are the real stains of his life has drawn 
on him so much obloquy as this measure, which was in 
truth a reform necessary to the success of all his other 
reforms. 

15 He had quelled the opposition of the civil service : 
that of the army was more formidable. Some of the 
retrenchments which had been ordered by the Directors 
affected the interests of the military service ; and a 
storm arose, such as even Caesar would not willingly 

20 have faced. It was no light thing to encounter the 
resistance of those who held the power of the sword, 
in a country governed only by the sword. Two hundred 
English officers engaged in a conspiracy against the 
government, and determined to resign their commissions 

25 on the same day, not doubting that Clive would grant 
any terms rather than see the army, on which alone the 
British empire in the East rested, left without com- 
manders. They little knew the unconquerable spirit 
with which they had to deal. Clive had still a few offi- 
cers round his person on whom he could rely. He sent 



lObb clive. 103 

to Fort St. George for a fresh supply. He gave commis- 
sions even to mercantile agents who were disposed to 
support Mm at this crisis ; and lie sent orders that every 
officer who resigned should be instantly brought up to 
Calcutta. The conspirators found that they had mis- 5 
calculated. The governor was inexorable. The troops 
were steady. The sepoys, over whom Clive had always 
possessed extraordinary influence, stood by him with 
unshaken fidelity. The leaders in the plot were arrested, 
tried, and cashiered. The rest, humbled and dispirited, 10 
begged to be permitted to withdraw their resignations. 
Many of them declared their repentance even with tears. 
The younger offenders Clive treated with lenity. To 
the ringleaders he was inflexibly severe ; but his severity 
was pure from all taint of private malevolence. While 15 
he sternly upheld the just authority of his office, he 
passed by personal insults and injuries with magnani- 
mous disdain. One of the conspirators was accused of 
having planned the assassination of the governor; but 
Clive would not listen to the charge. " The officers," 20 
he said, " are Englishmen, not assassins." 

While he reformed the civil service and established 
his authority over the army, he was equally successful in 
his foreign policy. His landing on Indian ground was 
the signal for immediate peace. The Nabob of Oude, 25 
with a large army, lay at that time on the frontier of 
Bahar. He had been joined by many Afghans and 
Mahrattas, and there was no small reason to expect a 
general coalition of all the native powers against the 
English. But the name of Clive quelled in an instant 



104 MACAULAY. 

all opposition. The enemy implored peace in tlie hum- 
blest language, and submitted to such terms as the new 
governor chose to dictate. 

At the same time, the government of Bengal was 
5 placed on a new footing. The power of the English in 
that province had hitherto been altogether undefined. 
It was unknown to the ancient constitution of the 
empire, and it had been ascertained by no compact. 
It resembled the power which, in the last decrepitude 

10 of the Western Empire, was exercised over Italy by the 
great chiefs of foreign mercenaries, the Eicimers and 
the Odoacers, who put up and pulled down at their 
pleasure a succession of insignificant princes, dignified 
with the names of Csesar and Augustus. But as in 

IS Italy, so in India, the warlike strangers at length found 
it expedient to give to a domination which had been 
established by arms the sanction of law and ancient 
prescription. Theodoric thought it politic to obtain 
from the distant court of Byzantium a commission 

20 appointing him ruler of Italy; and Clive, in the same 
manner, applied to the Court of Delhi for a formal grant 
of the powers of which he already possessed the reality. 
The Mogul was absolutely helpless ; and, though he 
murmured, had reason to be well pleased that the Eng- 

25 lish were disposed to give solid rupees which he never 
could have extorted from them, in exchange for a few 
Persian characters which cost him nothing. A bargain 
was speedily struck ; and the titular sovereign of Hindoo- 
stan issued a warrant, empowering the Company to collect 
and administer the revenues of Bengal, Orissa, and Bahar. 



LOBD CLIVK 105 

There was still a Nabob, who stood to the British 
authorities in the same relation in which the last drivel- 
ling Chilperics and Childerics of the Merovingian line 
stood to their able and vigorous Mayors of the Palace, 
to Charles Martel and to Pepin. At one time Clive had 5 
almost made up his mind to discard this phantom 
altogether; but he afterwards thought that it might 
be convenient still to use the name of the Nabobj par- 
ticularly in dealings with other European nations. The 
French, the Dutch, and the Danes, would, he conceived, 10 
submit far more readily to the authority of the native 
Prince, whom they had always been accustomed to 
respect, than to that of a rival trading corporation. 
This policy may, at that time, have been judicious. 
But the pretence was soon found to be too flimsy to 15 
impose on anybody ; and it was altogether laid aside. 
The heir of Meer Jaffier still resides at Moorshedabad, 
the ancient capital of his house, still bears the title of 
Nabob, is still accosted by the English as " Your High- 
ness," and is still suffered to retain a portion of the regal 20 
state which surrounded his ancestors. A pension of a 
hundred and sixty thousand jDounds a year is annually 
paid to him by the government. His carriage is sur- 
rounded by guards, and preceded by attendants with 
silver maces. His joerson and his dwelling are exempted 25 
from the ordinary authority of the ministers of justice. 
But he has not the smallest share of political power, 
and is, in fact, only a noble and wealthy subject of the 
Company. 

It would have been easy for Clive, during his second 



106 MACAULAT. 

administration in Bengal, to accumulate riclies such as 
no subject in Europe possessed. He might, indeed, 
without subjecting the rich inhabitants of the province 
to any pressure beyond that to which their mildest 

5 rulers had accustomed them, have received presents to 
the amount of three hundred thousand pounds a year. 
Tlie neighboring princes would gladly have paid any 
price for his favor. But he appears to have strictly 
adhered to the rules which he had laid down for the 

10 guidance of others. The Kajah of Benares offered him 
diamonds of great value. The Nabob of Oude pressed 
him to accept a large sum of money and a casket of 
costly jewels. Clive courteously, but peremptorily re- 
fused : and it should be observed that he made no merit 

15 of his refusal, and that the facts did not come to light 
till after his death. He kept an exact account of his 
salary, of his share of the profits accruing from the 
trade in salt, and of those presents which, according to 
the fashion of the East, it would be churlish to refuse. 

20 Out of the sum arising from these resources, he defrayed 
the expenses of his situation. The surplus he divided 
among a few attached friends who had accompanied him 
to India. He always boasted, and as far as we can 
judge, he boasted with truth, that his last administra- 

25 tion diminished instead of increasing his fortune. 

One large sum indeed he accepted. Meer Jaffier had 
left him by will above sixty thousand pounds sterling in 
specie and jewels : and the rules which had been recently 
laid down extended only to presents from the living, 
and did not affect legacies from the dead. Clive took 



LOBB CLIVE. 107 

the money, but not for himself. He made the whole 
over to the Company, in trust for officers and soldiers 
invalided in their service. The fund which still bears 
his name owes its origin to this princely donation. 

After a stay of eighteen months, the state of his 5 
health made it necessary for him to return to Europe. 
At the close of January, 1767, he quitted for the last 
time the country, on whose destinies he had exercised 
so mighty an influence. 

His second return from Bengal was not, like his first, 10 
greeted by the acclamations of his countrymen. Numer- 
ous causes were already at work which embittered the 
remaining years of his life, and hurried him to an 
untimely grave. His old enemies at the India House 
were still powerful and active ; and they had been re-en- 15 
forced by a large band of allies whose violence far 
exceeded their own. The whole crew of pilferers and 
oppressors from whom he had rescued Bengal persecuted 
him with the implacable rancor which belongs to such 
abject natures. Many of them even invested their prop- 20 
erty in India stock, merely that they might be better 
able to annoy the man whose firmness had set bounds 
to their rapacity. Lying newspapers were set up for no 
purpose but to abuse him ; and the temper of the public 
mind was then such, that these arts, which under ordi- 25 
nary circumstances would have been ineffectual against 
truth and merit, produced an extraordinary impression. 

The great events which had taken place in India had 
called into existence a new class of Englishmen, to whom 
their countrymen gave the name of Nabobs. These 



108 MACAULAT. 

persons liad generally sprung from families neither 
ancient nor opulent ; tliey had generally been sent at an 
early age to the East ; and they had there acquired large 
fortunes, which they had brought back to their native 

5 land. It was natural that/ not having had much oppor- 
tunity of mixing with the best society, they should 
exhibit some of the awkwardness and some of the pom- 
posity of upstarts. It was natural that, during their 
sojourn in Asia, they should have acquired some tastes 

10 and habits surprising, if not disgusting, to persons who 
never had quitted Europe. It was natural that, having 
enjoyed great consideration in the East, they should not 
be disposed to sink into obscurity at home ; and, as they 
had money, and had not birth or high connection, it was 

15 natural that they should display a little obtrusively the 
single advantage which they possessed. Wherever they 
settled there was a kind of feud between them and the 
old nobility and gentry, similar to that which raged in 
France between the farmer-general and the marquess. 

20 This enmity to the aristocracy long continued to distin- 
guish the servants of the Company. More than twenty 
years after the time of which we are now speaking, 
Burke pronounced that among the Jacobins might be 
reckoned "the East Indians almost to a man, who can- 

25 not bear to find that their present importance does not 
bear a proportion to their wealth." 

The Nabobs soon became a most unpopular class of 
men. Some of them had in the East displayed eminent 
talents, and rendered great services to the State ; but at 
home their talents were not shown to advantage, and 



LOUB CLIVE. 109 

their services were little known. That they had sprung 
from obscurity; that they had acquired great wealth; 
that they exhibited it insolently ; that they spent it 
extravagantly ; that they raised the price of everything 
in their neighborhood, from fresh eggs to rotten bor- 5 
oughs ; that their liveries outshone those of dukes ; that 
their coaches were finer than that of the Lord Mayor ; 
that the examples of their large and ill-governed house- 
holds corrupted half the servants in the country ; that 
some of them, with all their magnificence, could not 10 
catch the tone of good society, but, in spite of the stud 
and the crowd of menials, of the plate and the Dresden 
china, of the venison and the Burgundy, were still low 
men ; these were things which excited, both in the class 
from which they had sprung and in the class into which 15 
they attempted to force themselves, the bitter aversion 
which is the effect of mingled envy and contempt. But 
when it was also rumored that the fortune which had 
enabled its possessor to eclipse the Lord Lieutenant on 
the race-ground, or to carry the county against the head 20 
of a house as old as Domesday Book, had been accumu- 
lated by violating public faith, by deposing legitimate 
princes, by reducing whole provinces to beggary, all the 
higher and better as well as all the low and evil parts of 
human nature were stirred against the wretch who had 25 
obtained by guilt and dishonor the riches which he now 
lavished with arrogant and inelegant profusion. The 
unfortunate Nabob seemed to be made up of those foi- 
bles against which comedy has pointed the most merci- 
less ridicule, and of those crimes which have thrown 



no MACAULAY. 

the deepest gloom over tragedy, of Turcaret and Kero, 
of Monsieur Jourdain and Eicliard the Third. A tem- 
pest of execration and derision, such as can be compared 
only to that outbreak of public feeling against the Puri- 

5 tans which took place at the time of the Eestoration, 
burst on the servants of the Company. The humane 
man was horror-struck at the way in which they had got 
their money, the thrifty man at the way in which they 
spent it. The Dilettante sneered at their want of taste. 

10 The Maccaroni black-balled them as vulgar fellows. 
Writers the most unlike in sentiment and style, Meth- 
odists and libertines, philosophers and buffoons, were for 
once on the same side. It is hardly too much to say 
that, during a space of about thirty years, the whole 

15 lighter literature of England was colored by the feelings 
which we have described. Foote brought on the stage 
an Anglo-Indian chief, dissolute, ungenerous, and tyran- 
nical, ashamed of the humble friends of his youth, 
hating the aristocracy, yet childishly eager to be num- 

20 bered among them, squandering his wealth on pandars 
and flatterers, tricking out his chairmen with the most 
costly hot-house flowers, and astounding the ignorant 
with jargon about rupees, lacs, and jaghires. Mackenzie, 
with more delicate humor, depicted a plain country 

25 family raised by the Indian acquisitions of one of its 
members to sudden opulence, and exciting derision by 
an awkward mimicry of the manners of the great. 
Cowper, in that lofty expostulation which glows with the 
very spirit of the Hebrew poets, placed the oppression 
of India foremost in the list of those national crimes 



LOBD CLIVK 111 

for which God had punished England with years of 
disastrous war, with discomfiture in her own seas, and 
with the loss of her transatlantic empire. If any of 
our readers will take the trouble to search in the dusty 
recesses of circulating libraries for some novel published 5 
sixty years ago, the chance is that the villain or sub- 
villain of the play will prove to be a savage old Nabob, 
with an immense fortune, a tawny complexion, a bad 
liver, and a worse heart. 

Such, as far as we can now judge, was the feeling of 10 
the country respecting ISTabobs in general. And Clive 
was eminently the Nabob, the ablest, the most cele- 
brated, the highest in rank, the highest in fortune, of all 
the fraternity. His wealth was exhibited in a manner 
which could not fail to excite odium. He lived with great 15 
magnificence in Berkeley Square. He reared one palace 
in Shropshire and another at Claremont. His parliamen- 
tary influence might vie with that of the greatest fami- 
lies. But in all this splendor and power, envy found 
something to sneer at. On some of his relations, wealth 20 
and dignity seem to have sat as awkwardly as on Mac- 
kenzie's Margery Mushroom. Nor was he himself, with 
all his great qualities, free from those weaknesses which 
the satirists of that age represented as characteristic of 
his whole class. In the field, indeed, his habits were 25 
remarkably simple. He was constantly on horseback, 
was never seen but in his uniform, never wore silk, never 
entered a palanquin, and was content with the plainest 
fare. But when he was no longer at the head of an army, 
he laid aside this Spartan temperance for the ostentatious 



112 MACAULAT, 

luxury of a Sybarite. Though his person was ungrace- 
ful, and though his harsh features were redeemed from 
vulgar ugliness only by their stern, dauntless, and com- 
manding expression, he was fond of rich and gay cloth- 
5 ing, and replenished his wardrobe with absurd profu- 
sion. Sir John Malcolm gives us a letter worthy of Sir 
Matthew Mite, in which Clive orders "two hundred 
shirts, the best and finest that can be got for love or 
money." A few follies of this description, grossly exag- 

10 gerated by report, produced an unfavorable impression 
on the public mind. But this was not the worst. 
Black stories, of which the greater part were pure 
inventions, were circulated touching his conduct in the 
East. He had to bear the whole odium, not only of 

15 those bad acts to which he had once or twice stooped, 
but of all the bad acts of all the English in India, of 
bad acts committed when he was absent, nay, of bad 
acts which he had manfully opposed and severely pun- 
ished. The very abuses against which he had waged an 

20 honest, resolute, and successful war, were laid to his 
account. He was, in fact, regarded as the personifica- 
tion of all the vices and weaknesses which the public, 
with or without reason, ascribed to the English adven- 
turers in Asia. We have ourselves heard old men, who 

25 knew nothing of his history, but who still retained the 
prejudices conceived in their youth, talk of him as an 
incarnate fiend. Johnson always held this language. 
Brown, whom Clive employed to lay out his pleasure- 
grounds, was amazed to see in the house of his noble 
employer a chest which had once been filled with gold 



LOBD cliv:e:. 113 

from the treasury of Moorshedabad, and could not under- 
stand how the conscience of the criminal could suffer 
him to sleep with such an object so near to his bed- 
chamber. The peasantry of Surrey looked with mys- 
terious horror on the stately house which was rising at 5 
Glaremont, and whispered that the great wicked lord 
had ordered the walls to be made so thick in order to 
keep out the devil, who would one day carry him away 
bodily. Among the gaping clowns who drank in this 
frightful story was a worthless, ugly lad of the name of 10 
Hunt, since widely known as William Huntington, S.S. ; 
and the superstition which was strangely mingled with 
the knavery of that remarkable impostor seems to have 
derived no small nutriment from the tales which he 
heard of the life and character of Clive. 15 

In the mean time, the impulse which Clive had given 
to the administration of Bengal was constantly becom- 
ing fainter and fainter. His policy was to a great 
extent abandoned ; the abuses which he had suppressed 
began to revive ; and at length the evils which a bad 20 
government had engendered were aggravated by one of 
those fearful visitations which the best government 
cannot avert. In the summer of 1770, the rains failed; 
the earth was parched up ; the tanks were empty ; the 
rivers shrank within their beds ; and a famine, such as 25 
is known only in countries where every household 
depends for support on its own little patch of cultiva- 
tion, filled the whole valley of the Ganges with misery 
and death. Tender and delicate women whose veils had 
never been lifted before the public gaze, came forth from 



114 MACAULAY, 

the inner chambers in which Eastern jealousy had kept 
watch over their beauty, threw themselves on the earth 
before the passers-by, and, with loud wailings, implored 
a handful of rice for their children. The Hoogley every 

5 day rolled down thousands of corpses close to the porti- 
cos and gardens of the English conquerors. The very 
streets of Calcutta were blocked up by the dying and 
the dead. The lean and feeble survivors had not energy 
enough to bear the bodies of their kindred to the funeral 

10 pile or to the holy river, or even to scare away the 
jackals and vultures, who fed on human remains in the 
face of day. The extent of the mortality was never 
ascertained; but it was popularly reckoned by millions. 
This melancholy intelligence added to the excitement 

15 which already prevailed in England on Indian subjects. 
The proprietors of East India stock were uneasy about 
their dividends. All men of common humanity were 
touched by the calamities of our unhappy subjects ; and 
indignation soon began to mingle itself with pity. It 

20 was rumored that the Company's servants had created 
the famine by engrossing all the rice of the country; 
that they had sold grain for eight, ten, twelve times the 
price at which they had bought it; that one English 
functionary Avho, the year before, was not worth a hun- 

2S dred guineas, had, during that season of misery, remitted 
sixty thousand pounds to London. These charges we 
believe to have been unfounded. That servants of the 
Company had ventured, since Clive's departure, to deal 
in rice, is probable. That, if they dealt in rice, they 
must have gained by the scarcity, is certain. But there 



LORD CLIVE, 115 

is no reason for thinking tliat tliey either produced or 
aggravated an evil which physical causes sufficiently 
explain. The outcry which was raised against them on 
this occasion was, we suspect, as absurd as the imputa- 
tions which, in times of dearth at home, were once 5 
thrown by statesmen and judges, and are still thrown 
by two or three old women, on the corn factors. It was, 
however, so loud and so general that it appears to have 
imposed even on an intellect raised so high above vulgar 
prejudices as that of Adam Smith. What was still 10 
more extraordinary, these unhappy events greatly in- 
creased the unpopularity of Lord Clive. He had been 
some years in England when the famine took place. 
None of his acts had the smallest tendency to produce 
such a calamity. If the servants of the Company had 15 
traded in rice, they had done so in direct contravention 
of the rule which he had laid down, and, while in power, 
had resolutely enforced. But, in the eyes of his coun- 
trymen, he was, as we have said, the Nabob, the Anglo- 
Indian character personified ; and, while he was building 20 
and planting in Surrey, he was held responsible for all 
the effects of a dry season in Bengal. 

Parliament had hitherto bestowed very little attention 
on our Eastern possessions. Since the death of George 
the Second, a rapid succession of weak administrations, 25 
each of which was in turn flattered and betrayed by the 
Court, had held the semblance of power. Intrigues in 
the palace, riots in the capital, and insurrectionary move- 
ments in the American colonies, had left the advisers of 
the crown little leisure to study Indian politics. When 



116 MACAULAY. 

they did interfere, their interference was feeble and 
irresolute. Lord Chatham, indeed, during the short 
period of his ascendency in the councils of G-eorge the 
Third, had meditated a bold attack on the Company. 
5 But his plans were rendered abortive by the strange 
malady which about that time began to overcloud his 
splendid genius. 

At length, in 1772, it was generally felt that Parlia- 
ment could no longer neglect the affairs of India. The 

10 Government was stronger than any which had held 
power since the breach between Mr. Pitt and the great 
Whig connection in 1761. No pressing question of 
domestic or European policy required the attention of 
public men. There was a short and delusive lull be- 

15 tween two tempests. The excitement produced by the 
Middlesex election was over ; the discontents of America 
did not yet threaten civil war ; the finaucial difficulties 
of the Company brought on a crisis ; the Ministers were 
forced to take up the subject ; and the whole storm, which 

20 had long been gathering, now broke at once on the head 
of Clive. 

His situation was indeed singularly unfortunate. He 
was hated throughout the country, hated at the India, 
House, hated, above all, by those wealthy and powerful 

25 servants of the Company, whose rapacity and tyranny 
he had withstood. He had to bear the double odium 
of his bad and of his good actions, of every Indian 
abuse and of every Indian reform. The state of the 
political world was such that he could count on the 
support of no powerful connection. The party to which 



LORD CLIVE. 117 

he had belonged, that of George Grenville, had been 
hostile to the Government, and yet had never cordially 
united with the other sections of the Opposition, with 
the little band which still followed the fortunes of 
Lord Chatham, or with the large and respectable body 5 
of which Lord Rockingham was the acknowledged leader. 
George Grenville was now dead: his followers were 
scattered ; and Clive, unconnected with any of the pow- 
erful factions which divided the Parliament, could reckon 
only on the votes of those members who were returned lo 
by himself. His enemies, particularly those who were 
the enemies of his virtues, were unscrupulous, ferocious, 
implacable. Their malevolence aimed at nothing less 
than the utter ruin of his fame and fortune. They 
wished to see him expelled from Parliament, to see his 15 
spurs chopped off, to see his estate confiscated ; and it 
may be doubted whether even such a result as this would 
have quenched their thirst for revenge. 

Olive's parliamentary tactics resembled his military 
tactics. Deserted, surrounded, outnumbered, and with 20 
everything at stake, he did not even deign to stand on 
the defensive, but pushed boldly forward to the attack. 
At an early stage of the discussions on Indian affairs he 
rose, and, in a long and elaborate speech, vindicated him- 
self from a large part of the accusations which had been 25 
brought against him. He is said to have produced a 
great impression on his audience. Lord Chatham who, 
now the ghost of his former self, loved to haunt the 
scene of his glory, was that night under the gallery of 
the House of Commons, and declared that he had never 



118 MACAULAT. 

heard a finer speech. It was subsequently printed under 
Olive's direction, and, when the fullest allowance has 
been made for the assistance which he may have obtained 
from literary friends, proves him to have possessed, not 
5 merely strong sense and a manly spirit, but talents both 
for disquisition and declamation which assiduous culture 
might have improved into the highest excellence. He 
confined his defence on this occasion to the measures of 
his last administration, and succeeded so far that his 

10 enemies thenceforth thought it expedient to direct their 
attacks chiefly against the earlier part of his life. 

The earlier part of his life unfortunately presented 
some assailable points to their hostility. A committee 
was chosen by ballot to inquire into the affairs of India ; 

15 and by this committee the whole history of that great 
revolution which threw down Surajah Dowlah, and raised 
Meer Jafiier was sifted with malignant care. Clive was 
subjected to the most unsparing examination and cross- 
examination, and afterwards bitterly complained that he, 

20 the Baron of Plassey, had been treated like a sheep- 
stealer. The boldness and ingenuousness of his replies 
would alone suffice to show how alien from his nature 
were the frauds to which, in the course of his eastern 
negotiations, he had sometimes descended. He avowed 

25 the arts which he had employed to deceive Omichund, 
and resolutely said that he was not ashamed of them, 
and that, in the same circumstances, he would again act 
in the same manner. He admitted that he had received 
immense sums from Meer Jaffier ; but he denied that, in 
doing so, he had violated any obligation of morality or 



LORD CLIVE. 119 

honor. He laid claim, on the contrary, and not without 
some reason, to the praise of eminent disinterestedness. 
He described in vivid language the situation in which 
his victory had placed him ; great princes dependent on 
his pleasure ; an opulent city afraid of being given up 5 
to plunder ; wealthy bankers bidding against each other 
for his smiles ; vaults jjiled with gold and jewels thrown 
open to him alone. '^By God, Mr. Chairman," he ex- 
claimed, " at this moment I stand astonished at my own 
moderation." lo 

The inquiry was so extensive that the Houses rose- 
before it had been completed. It was continued in the 
following session. When at length the committee had 
concluded its labors, enlightened and impartial men had 
little difficulty in making up their minds as to the result. 15 
It was clear that Clive had been guilty of some acts 
which it is impossible to vindicate without attacking 
the authority of all the most sacred laws which regulate 
the intercourse of individuals and of states. But it was 
equally clear that he had displayed great talents, and 20 
even great virtues ; that he had rendered eminent services 
both to his country and to the people of India ; and that 
it was in truth not for his dealings with Meer Jaffier, 
nor for the fraud which he had practised on Omichund, 
but for his determined resistance to avarice and tyranny, 25 
that he was now called in question. 

Ordinary criminal justice knows nothing of set-off. 
The greatest desert cannot be pleaded .in answer to a 
charge of the slightest transgression. If a man has sold 
beer on Sunday morning, it is no defence that he has 



120 MACAULAY. 

saved the life of a fellow-creature at the risk of his own. 
If he has harnessed a Newfoundland dog to his little 
child's carriage, it is no defence that he was wounded at 
Waterloo. But it is not in this way that we ought to 

5 deal with men who, raised far above ordinary restraints, 
and tried by far more than ordinary temptations, are 
entitled to a more than ordinary measure of indulgence. 
Such men should be judged by their contemporaries as 
they will be judged by posterity. Their bad actions 

10 ought not, indeed, to be called good ; but their good and 
bad actions ought to be fairly weighed ; and if on the 
whole the good preponderate, the sentence ought to be 
one, not merely of acquittal, but of approbation. Not a 
single great ruler in history can be absolved by a judge 

15 who fixes his eye inexorably on one or two unjustifiable 
acts. Bruce the deliverer of Scotland, Maurice the 
deliverer of Germany, William the deliverer of Hol- 
land, his great descendant the deliverer of England, 
Murray the good regent, Cosmo the father of his coun- 

20 try, Henry the Fourth of France, Peter the Great of 
Kussia, how would the best of them pass such a scru- 
tiny ? History takes wider views ; and the best tri- 
bunal for great political cases is the tribunal which 
anticipates the verdict of history. 

25 Eeasonable and moderate men of all parties felt this 
in Olive's case. They could not pronounce him blame- 
less ; but they were not disposed to abandon him to that 
low-minded and rancorous pack who had run him down 
and were eager to worry him to death. Lord North, 
though not very friendly to him, was not disposed to go 



LORD CLIVE, 121 

to extremities against him. While the inquiry was still 
in progress, Clive, who had some years before been 
created a Knight of the Bath, was installed with great 
pomp in Henry the Seventh's Chapel. He was soon 
after appointed Lord Lieutenant of Shropshire. When 5 
he kissed hands, George the Third, who had always been 
partial to him, admitted him to a private audience, 
talked to him half an hour on Indian politics, and was 
visibly affected when the persecuted general spoke of 
his services and of the way in which they had been lo 
requited. 

At length the charges came in a definite form before 
the House of Commons. Burgoyne, chairman of the 
committee, a man of wit, fashion, and honor, an agree- 
able dramatic writer, an officer whose courage was never 15 
questioned, and whose skill was at that time highly 
esteemed, appeared as the accuser. The members of 
the administration took different sides ; for in that age 
all questions were open questions, except such as were 
brought forward by the Government, or such as implied 20 
some censure on the Government. Thurlow, the At- 
torney-General, was among the assailants. Wedder- 
burne, the Solicitor-General, strongly attached to Clive, 
defended his friend with extraordinary force of argu- 
ment and language. It is a curious circumstance that, 25 
some years later, Thurlow was the most conspicuous 
champion of Warren Hastings ; while Wedderburne was 
among the most unrelenting persecutors of that great 
though not faultless statesman. Clive spoke in his own 
defence at less length and with less art than in the 



122 MACAULAY, 

preceding year, but witli much energy and pathos. He 
recounted his great actions and his wrongs ; and, after 
bidding his hearers remember, that they were about to 
decide not only on his honor but on their own, he 
5 retired from the House. 

The Commons resolved that acquisitions made by the 
arms of the State belong to the State alone, and that it 
is illegal in the servants of the State to appropriate 
such accxuisitions to the]nselves. They resolved that 

10 this wholesome rule appeared to have been systemati- 
cally violated by the English functionaries in Bengal. 
On a subsequent day they went a step farther, and 
resolved that Clive had, by means of the power which 
he possessed as commander of the British forces in 

15 India, obtained large sums from Meer Jaffier. Here 
the Commons stopped. They had voted the major and 
minor of Burgojaie's syllogism ; but they shrank from 
drawing the logical conclusion. When it was moved that 
Lord Clive had abused his powers, and set an evil exam- 

20 pie to the servants of the public, the previous question 
was put and carried. At length, long after the sun had 
risen on an animated debate, AVedderburne moved that 
Lord Clive had at the same time rendered great and 
meritorious services to his country ; and this motion 

25 passed without a division. 

The result of this memorable inquiry appears to us, 
on the whole honorable to the justice, moderation, and 
discernment of the Commons. They had indeed no 
great temptation to do wrong. They would have been 
very bad judges of an accusation brought against Jen- 



LORD CLIVE. 123 

kinson Or against Wilkes. But the question respecting 
Clive was not a party question ; and the House accord- 
ingly acted with the good sense and good feeling which 
may always be expected from an assembly of English 
gentlemen, not blinded by faction. 5 

The equitable and temperate proceedings of the British 
Parliament were set- off to the greatest advantage by a 
foil. The Wretched government of Lewis the Fifteenth 
had murdered, directly or indirectly, almost every French- 
man who had served his country with distinction in the lo 
East. Labourdonnais was flung into the Bastile, and, 
after years of suffering, left it only to die. Dupleix, 
stripped of his immense fortune, and broken-hearted by 
humiliating attendance in antechambers, sank into an 
obscure grave. Lally was dragged to the common place 15 
of execution with a gag between his lips. The Commons 
of England, on the other hand, treated their living cap- 
tain with that discriminating justice which is seldom 
shown except to the dead. They laid down sound gen- 
eral principles; they delicately pointed out where he 20 
had deviated from those principles ; and they tempered 
the gentle censure with liberal eulogy. The contrast 
struck Voltaire, always partial to England, and always 
eager to expose the abuses of the Parliaments of France. 
Indeed he seems, at this time, to have meditated a his- 25 
tory of the conquest of Bengal. He mentioned his 
design to Dr. Moore when that amusing writer visited 
him at Ferney. Wedderburne took great interest in the 
matter, and pressed Clive to furnish materials. Had 
the plan been carried into execution, we have no doubt 



124 MACAULAT. 

that Voltaire wOuld have produced a bOOk containing 
much lively and picturesque narrative^ many just and 
humane sentiments poignantly expressed, many gro- 
tesque blunders, many sneers at the Mosaic chronology, 

5 much scandal about the Catholic missionaries, and much 
sublime theo-philanthropy, stolen from the New Testa- 
ment, and put into the mouths of virtuous and philo- 
sophical Brahmins. 

Clive was now secure in the enjoyment of his fortune 

10 and his honors. He was surrounded by attached friends 
and relations ; and he had not yet passed the season of 
vigorous bodily and mental exertion. But clouds had 
long been gathering over his mind, and now settled on 
it in thick darkness. From early youth he had been 

15 subject to fits of that strange melancholy '^ which 
rejoiceth exceedingly and is glad when it can find the 
grave." While still a writer at Madras, he had twice 
attempted to destroy himself. Business and prosperity 
had produced a salutary effect on his spirits. In India, 

20 while he Avas occupied by great affairs, in England, 
while wealth and rank had still the charm of novelty, 
he had borne up against his constitutional misery. But 
he had now nothing to do, and nothing to wish for. 
His active spirit in an inactive situation dirooped and 

25 withered like a plant in an uncongenial air. The malig- 
nity with which his enemies had pursued him; the 
indignity with which he had been treated by the com- 
mittee ; the censure, lenient as it was, which the House 
of Commons had pronounced ; the knowledge that he 
was regarded by a large portion of his countrymen as a 



LOBB CLIVE. 125 

cruel and perfidious tyrant, — all concurred to irritate and 
depress him. In the mean time, Ms temper was tried 
by acute physical suffering. During his long residence 
in tropical climates, he had contracted several painful 
distempers. In order to obtain ease he called in the 5 
help of opium ; and he was gradually enslaved by this 
treacherous ally. To the last, however, his genius occa- 
sionally flashed through the gloom. It was said that he 
would sometimes, after sitting silent and torpid for 
hours, rouse himself to the discussion of some great 10 
question, would display in full vigor all the talents of 
the soldier and the statesman, and would then sink back 
into his melancholy repose. 

The disputes with America had now become so serious 
that an appeal to the sword seemed inevitable ; and the 15 
Ministers were desirous to avail themselves of the ser- 
vices of Clive. Had he still been what he was when he 
raised the siege of Patna, and annihilated the Dutch 
army and navy at the mouth of the Ganges, it is not 
improbable that the resistance of the Colonists would 20 
have been put down, and that the inevitable separation 
would have been deferred for a few years. But it was 
too late. His strong mind was fast sinking under many 
kinds of suffering. On the twenty-second of November, 
1774, he died by his own hand. He had just completed 25 
his forty-ninth year. 

In the awful close of so much prosperity and glory, 
the vulgar saw only a confirmation of all their preju- 
dices ; and some men of real piety and genius so far 
forgot the maxims both of religion and of philosophy as 



126 MACAULAT. 

confidently to ascribe the mournful event to the just 
vengeance of God, and to the horrors of an evil con- 
science. It is with very different feelings that we con- 
template the spectacle of a great mind ruined by the 

5 weariness of satiety, by the pangs of wounded honor, by 
fatal diseases, and more fatal remedies. 

Clive committed great faults ; and we have not at- 
tempted to disguise them. But his faults, when weighed 
against his merits, and viewed in connection with his 

10 temptations, do not appear to us to deprive him of his 
right to an honorable place in the estimation of posterity. 
. From his first visit to India dates the renown of the 
English arms in the East. Till he appeared, his coun- 
trymen were despised as mere pedlers, while the French 

15 were revered as a people formed for victory and com- 
mand. His courage and capacity dissolved the charm. 
With the defen.ce of Arcot commences that long series 
of Oriental triumphs which closes with the fall of 
Ghizni. Nor must we forget that he was only twenty- 

20 five years old when he approved himself ripe for mili- 
tary command. This is a rare if not a singular distinc- 
tion. It is true that Alexander, Conde, and Charles the 
Twelfth, won great battles at a still earlier age; but 
those princes were surrounded by veteran generals of 

25 distinguished skill, to whose suggestions must be attrib- 
uted the victories of the Granicus, of Eocroi, and of 
Karva. Clive, an inexperienced youth, had yet more 
experience than any of those who served under him. 
He had to form himself, to form his officers, and to 
form his army. The only man, as far as we recollect, 



LORD CLIVE. 127 

who at an equally early age ever gave equal proof of 
talents for war, was ]N"apoleon Bonaparte. 

FroDi Olive's second visit to India dates the political 
ascendency of the English in that country. His dexter- 
ity and resolution realized, in the course of a few 5 
months, more than all the gorgeous visions which had 
floated before the imagination of Dupleix. Such an 
extent of cultivated territory, such an amount of rev- 
enue, such a multitude of subjects, was never added to 
the dominion of Eome by the most successful pro-consul, lo 
Nor were such wealthy spoils ever borne under arches 
of triumph, down the Sacred Way, and through the 
crowded Forum, to the threshold of Tarpeian Jove. The 
fame of those who subdued Antiochus and Tigranes 
grows dim when compared with the splendor of the 15 
exploits vvhich the j^oung English adventurer achieved 
at the head of an army not equal in numbers to one-half 
of a Roman legion. 

From dive's third visit to India dates the purity of 
the administration of our Eastern empire. When he 20 
landed in Calcutta in 1765, Bengal was regarded as a 
place to which Englishmen were sent only to get rich, 
by any means, in the shortest possible time. He first 
made dauntless and unsparing war on that gigantic sys- 
tem of oppression, extortion, and corruption. In that 25 
war he manfully put to hazard his ease, his fame, and 
his splendid fortune. The same sense of justice which 
forbids us to conceal or extenuate the faults of his earlier 
days compels us to admit that these faults were nobly 
repaired. If the reproach of the Company and of its 



128 MACAULAY 

servants has been taken away, if in India the yoke of 
foreign masters, elsewhere the heaviest of all yokes, has 
been found lighter than that of any native dynasty, if 
to that gang of public robbers which formerly spread 
5 terror through the whole plain of Bengal has succeeded 
a body of functionaries not more highly distinguished 
by ability and diligence than by integrity, disinterested- 
ness, and public spirit, if we now see such men as 
Munro, Elphinstone, and Metcalfe, after leading victori- 

10 ous armies, after making and deposing kings, return, 
proud of their honorable poverty, from a land which 
once held out to every greedy factor the hope of bound- 
less wealth, the praise is in no small measure due to 
Clive. His name stands high on the roll of conquerors. 

1^ But it is found in a better list, — in the list of those who 
have done and suffered much for the happiness of man- 
kind. To the warrior, history will assign a place in the 
same rank with Lucullus and Trajan. Nor will she deny 
to the reformer a share of that veneration with which 

^^ France cherishes the memory of Turgot, and with which 
the latest generations of Hindoos will contemplate the 
statue of Lord William Bentinck. 



INTRODUCTION TO NOTES. 



" The originality of form and treatment whicli Macaulay gave to 
the historical essay lias not, perhaps, received due recognition. 
Without having invented it, he so greatly improved and expanded 
it that he deserves nearly as much credit as if he had. He did for 
the historical essay what Haydn did for the sonata, and Watt for 
the steam-engine : he found it rudimentary and unimportant, and 
left it complete, and a thing of power. Before his time there was 
the ponderous history, generally in quarto, and there was the anti- 
quarian dissertation. There was also the historical review, con- 
taining alternate pages of extract and comment, generally dull and 
gritty. But the historical essay, as he conceived it, and with the 
prompt inspiration of a real discoverer immediately put into prac- 
tical shape, was as good as unknown before him. To take a bright 
period or personage of history, to frame it in a firm outline, to 
conceive it at once in article size, and then to fill in this limited 
canvas with sparkling anecdote, telling bits of color, and facts all 
fused together by a real genius for narrative, was the sort of genre- 
painting which Macaulay applied to history. And to this day his 
essays remain the best of their class, not only in England, but in 
Europe. Slight, or even trivial, in the field of historical erudition 
and critical inquiry, they are masterpieces if regarded in the light 
of great popular cartoons on subjects taken from modern history. 
They are painted, indeed, with such freedom, vividness, and power, 
that they may be said to enjoy a sort of tacit monopoly of the 
periods and characters to which they refer, in the estimation of 
the general public." — J. Cotter Morrison. 

129 



NOTES. 



Page 13, Line 1. We have always, etc. In these very first lines, 
we find exemplified the matliematical symmetry of structure of the 
typical Macaulay sentence. With the exception of the one clause 
" even among ourselves," the arrangement of the two parts of the 
antithesis is identical. Similar sentences will he found on every 
page of the essay; to analyze a dozen of them would be a profitable 
exercise for the student. 

P. 13, 1. 6. Montezuma. The student who does not answer to 
Macaulay's description of " every schoolboy," may consult Prescott's 
" Conquest of Mexico," Book V., Chap. 1. 

P. 13, 1. 6. Atahualpa. See Prescott's *' Conquest of Peru," 
Book III., Chap. 7. 

P. 13, 1. 9. The battle of Buxar. **Near the town of Buxar 
in Bengal, on October 23, 1764, Major, afterwards Sir Hector Monro, 
gained a great victory over the Nabob of Bude. . . . The Nabob was 
the only chief of any importance in the North, and the victory thus 
made the English complete masters of the Valley of the Ganges from 
the Himalayas to the sea." — C. B. 

P. 13, 1. 10. The massacre of Patna. "Meer Cassira, Nabob 
of Bengal, having been overthrown by the English in the battle of 
Gheriah, Aitg. 2, 1763, proceeded by way of revenge to massacre the 
English prisoners at Patna." — C. B. 

P. 13, 1. 11. Holkar. A Hindu Mahratta chief ; long a formidable 
enemy to the English in Central India. He died in 1811. 

P. 13, 1. 12. The victories of Cortez, etc. Consult Prescott to 
see how far this statement is accurate. 

P. 13, 1. 20. The people of India, etc. Macaulay " can conjure 
up in a moment a long vista of majestic similes, which attracts the 
eye like a range of snow-capped mountains. Take, for instance, the 

130 



NOTES. 131 

opening passages of the articles on * Lord Clive ' and * Ranke's History 
of the Popes.' As soon as the curtain rises, a grand panorama seems 
spread out before us." — Cotter Morrison. But are the ilhistra- 
tions in this paragraph technically similes ? 

Page 14, Line 5. Buildings more beautiful and costly, etc. 
More costly, perhaps, hut not more beautiful. Indian architecture is 
artistically weak, though often gorgeous. " The general result pro- 
duces a conviction that in this art, as in many other things, the Hindus 
display more richness and beauty in details, than greatness in the 
conception of the whole." — Elphinstone's "History of India." 

P. 14, 1. 10. The Great Captain. "Gonsalvo Hermandez de 
Cordova, born in 1443, so far distinguished himself in the Avars against 
the Moors under Ferdinand and Isabella, and again in the recovery 
of Naples from the French, as to gain the title of the Great Captain. 
He was, at onetime, Viceroy of Naples, but lost the favor of the king, 
and died in 1515."— C. B. 

P. 14, 1. 11. It might have been expected, etc. The first in- 
stance in this Essay of Macaulay's mastery over the elaborate periodic 
sentence. 

P. 14, 1. 19. Mr. Mill's book. James Mill, utilitarian-economist, 
historian, and father of John Stuart Mill, published his " History of 
British India " in 1818. 

P. 14, 1. 21. Orine. Robert Orme was a contemporary and acquaint- 
ance of Clive. His elaborate History has, therefore, real value. He 
died in 1801. 

P. 15, 1. 1. Sir John Malcolm. " Sir John Malcolm, a dis- 
tinguished soldier and diplomatist. . . . He spent most of his life in 
the service of the East India Company, filling at last the post of 
Governor of Bombay, in 1827. In 1831 he returned to England, and 
devoted the remaining years of his life to Parliament and to literary 
pursuits. His most valuable work is the ' History of Persia.' ' — C. B. 

P. 15, 1. 2. The late Lord Fowls. Clive's eldest son. 

P. 15, 1. 16. Whose love, etc. One of Macaulay's frequent Scrip- 
tural expressions. " Like Burke and like Ruskin at the present day, 
Macaulay was so saturated with the noble language of our Recognized 
Version of the Bible, that its phrases and turns of expression are to 
be found on almost any of his pages." — C. B. 

P. 15, 1. 19. The severe judgment of Mr. Mill. ''With great 
audacity, both military and political, fortunately adapted to the scene 



132 MACAULAT. 

in which he acted, and with considerable skill in the adaptation of 
temporary expedients to temporary exigences, he had no capacity for 
a comprehensive scheme, including any moderate anticipation for the 
future" (" History of British India," vol. iii. p. 492). 

Page 16, Line 5. Avocations. This word is incorrectly used. 
" Vocation " is an occupation; " Avocation," by good usage as well as 
by derivation, applies to something which calls away from business. 

P. 17, 1. 12. Tlie East India Company. The most famous com- 
mercial company which the world has ever known. It was founded 
by Queen Elizabeth, in 1600, at a time when the East seemed like a 
strange fairyland, and when the love of romance and adventure was a 
far more potent motive than the desire for money, From its origin, the 
history of the Company is interwoven with the history and the glory 
of England. Out of its work has directly sprung the British Em- 
pire in the East. It has had power, such as no other trading organi- 
zation ever possessed; for in 1624 the permission to inflict capital 
punishment on its servants was given it, and it thus became a body of 
rulers as well as of merchants. Factories were established at various 
places in India, and each factory became a centre for English rule. 
Time passed ; the seat of trade changed to a seat of government ; the 
president of the factory became a governor of a Province; and the 
despotic oligarchical rule of the last India Company was assured. 
As early as 1710, dominion and the increase of revenue had become 
its primary objects, far more than the increase of trade. This is not 
the place to speak of the financial vicissitudes which have marked 
the management of the Company's affairs: they constitute the ro- 
mance of the business world. 

At the time when Clive reached India, the French, the English, 
and the Dutch, were disputing the field; the Portuguese, the only 
other important nation which ever gained a footing in India, having 
lost their hold in the middle of the seventeenth century. The for- 
tunes of the rival nations are told by Macaulay. 

P. 19, 1. 13. The Great Mogul. Timur, or Tamerlane, re-estab- 
lished, in the fourteenth century, the great Mongolian Empire in 
Central Asia. After his death the empire was divided, but in 1519, 
Baber, a descendant of Timur, founded in India a powerful monarchy, 
which endured in reality till the close of the eighteentli century, and 
in name till our own day. It reached its greatest power and glory in 
the reign of Aurungzebe, 1658-1707. The Emperor bore the title of 



NOTES. 133 

the Great Mogul, and the governors of provinces tinder him were 
called Nabobs. For a description of the Mongolian Empire see the 
Essay, pp. 24-26. 

Page 19, Line M. Those names, etc. The rest of the paragraph 
is an excellent instance of Macaulay's rhetorical power and his 
triumphant patriotism. 

P. 21, 1. 12. Wallenstein. The hero of Schiller's great trilogy, 
Wallenstein's Camp, the Piccolomini and the Death of Wallenstein. 
Coleridge has a noble translation of the last two. 

P. 21, 1. 18. War of the Austrian succession, 1741-1748. Caused 
by the rival claims to the Austrian throne of Maria Theresa and the 
Elector of Bavaria. Fought between France, Spain, and Prussia, on 
the one hand, and England and Holland on the other. See Macaulay's 
Essay on Frederick the Great. 

P. 21, 1. 26. Liabourdonnais, 1699-1755. " Entered the French 
East India Company at the age of nineteen, and soon rose to dis- 
tinction. In 1734 appointed governor-general of He de France and 
Bourbon." — C. B. St. Pierre has an allusion to him in "Paul and 
Virginia." 

P. 22, 1. 12. Dupleix. " Joseph Dupleix was a French merchant, 
who so distinguished himself in trade, that in 1742 he was appointed 
governor of Pondicherry (see map), and director-general of the French 
factories in India. He died in poverty in 1763, nine years after his 
shameful recall." — C. B. 

P. 23, 1. 11. His personal courage, etc. Browning has, in his 
Dramatic Idyls, a long poem on Clive, which must refer to this episode 
in the ** great unhappy hero's " life. The poem, told after Clive's 
death by an old comrade, is of deep and vigorous power. A few 
lines give, perhaps, the best reason for our interest in Clive. 

" Power is power, my boy, and still 
Marks a man, — God's gift magnific, exercised for good or ill. 
You've your boot now on my hearth-rug, tread Avhat was a tiger's skm : 
Rarely such a royal monster as I lodged the bullet in ! 
True, he murdered half a village, so his own death came to pass : 
Still, for size and beauty, cunning, courage, ah, the brute he was ! ^ 

Why, that CUve, — that youth, that greenhorn, that quill-driving clerk, m 

fine — 
He sustained a siege in Arcot. . . . But the world knows ! Pass the wme — 

P. 23, 1. 23. Peace had been concluded. The peace of Aix-la- 
Chapelle, Oct. 7, 1848. 



134 MACAULAY. 

Page 24, Line 5. The English and French companies. ** The 

settlements of tlie French in the East at this time were more exten- 
sive, and of far greater political importance, than those of the English, 
whose sole aim hitherto has heen trade, and not political power. 
Besides, the French kept a much greater number of regular troops on 
foot." — C. B. The French East India Company was founded in 1664, 
and flourished for one hundred and five years. Between 1735 and 1741, 
the French began to interfere in the political affairs of India, and 
soon became known and feared as a political, no less than as a com- 
mercial company. In 1741, Dupleix was appointed governor-general 
of the French possessions in India. 

P. 24, 1. 8. The house of Tamerlane. See note, page 19, line 13. 

P. 25, 1. 6. Fierce tribes of Hindoos. The Mahrattas, or native 
inhabitants of the peninsula of Southern India, who became in the 
reign of Aurungzebe thoroughly rebellious under the rule of the 
Mohammedan House of Baber. 

P. 25, 1. 23. Theodosius. Emperor of the East, died in 395. His 
descendants sank into insignificance, while the empire was overrun 
by the barbarian hordes of the Goths and Vandals, and governed by 
eunuchs and women. 

These paragraphs are in Macaulay's best historical manner. The 
clearness and vividness of the presentation, and the light thrown on 
the less familiar by the more familiar history, blind us to the fact that 
the analogy presented is only superficial ; but the spirited vitality 
of the whole passage is admirable. 

P. 26, 1. 11. Gog or Magog. Revelation xx. 8. 

P. 27, 1.3. Bang. The same as the famous Turkish narcotic, hashish. 

P. 27, 1. 9. Roe. Sir Thomas Roe was sent by James I. in 1615 as 
ambassador to the court of the Great Mogul. Sir Thomas brought 
back a glowing account of the magnificence of Eastern life. 

P. 27, 1. 10. Bernier. " Fran9ois Bernier, a celebrated French 
traveller, who resided twelve years at the court of Aurungzebe as his 
physician. His * Travels ' which have always been popular, and have 
been translated into many languages, were published in 1688." — C. B. 

P. 27, 1. 10. The Peacock Throne, at Delhi, was supposed to cost 
$32,500,000. 

P. 27, 1. 12. Mountain of Light. The K6h-i-nur is now in 
possession of Queen Victoria, having been given to her by the East 
India Company in 1850. 



NOTES. 135 

Page 27, Line 15. The idol of Orissa. Jagannath, well known 
to us under the more familiar name of Juggernaut. 

P. 28, 1. 7. Every region. See how this general statement is in- 
tensified and made real to us by being translated into specific terms 
in the next sentence. His power of putting things in the concrete is 
one great source of Macaulay's charm. 

P. 28, 1. 23. 3Ialiratta ditch. "Made in 1742, as a defence against 
the Mahrattas." — C. B. 

P. 29, 1. 9. In what was this confusion to end? This paragraph 
should be carefully studied, as an example of Macaulay's most resound- 
ing rhetoric, his power of bringing near and far into picturesque prox- 
imity, and the one trait which he shares with Milton — his delight in 
proper names. Few of us are intimately acquainted with the Bur- 
ram-pooter; but fewer can restrain a thrill of exultation as its sonor- 
ous syllables meet our eye. 

P. 30, 1. 14. Saxe. Maurice de Saxe, 1696-1750. One of the most 
dashing, brilliant, and disreputable military figures of the eighteenth 
century. 

P. 31, 1. 24. The Carnatic. See map. 

P. 32, 1. 17. Sepoys. " A corruption of * Sipahi,' Hindustani for 
soldier.'^ — C. B. 

P. 32, 1. 23. The eloquence of Burke. " Edmund Burke (1730- 
1797). The speech on the Nabob of Arcot's debts is here referred to. 
This speech, one of the most impassioned Burke ever made, and in 
Lord Brougham's opinion, by far his finest, was delivered in 1785; in it 
there is more wealth of imagery, more invective, and more sarcasm, 
than perhaps in any other of his. The following passage is especially 
noteworthy, and will serve as an excellent contrast to Macaulay's 
style : — * All the horrors of war before known or heard of were 
mercy to that new havoc. A storm of universal fire blasted every 
field, consumed every house, destroyed every temple. The miserable 
inhabitants flying from their flaming villages in part were slaugh- 
tered ; others, without regard to sex, to age, to the respect of rank or 
sacredness of function, fathers torn from children, husbands from 
wives, enveloped in a whirlwind of cavalry, and amidst the goading 
spears of drivers, and the trampling of pursuing horses, were swept 
into captivity in an unknown and hostile land.' " — C. B. 

P. 34, 1. 13. He determined to erect a column, etc. Macaulay 
himself shows later, that this act was not, necessarily, the result of a 



136 MACAULAY. 

pompous love of show, but founded on a profound appreciation of 
the best methods of inspiring respect in the Eastern mind. 

Page 34, Line 19. Which is, being interpreted. Another 
biblical phrase. 

P. 35, 1. 13. Cllve was now, etc. Here the introductory and 
retrospective portion of the essay ends, and the subject proper begins. 
Macaulay is always careful about the proportions of the different 
parts of his works. 

P. 36, 1. 16. Preparations for sustaining a siege. The siege of 
Arcot is the first of the famous episodes of the essay. It is the kind 
of a story that thrills all Englishmen, and all who hold kinship to the 
English. 

" Fear I naturally look for — unless, of aU men alive, 

I am forced to make exception when I come to Robert Cllve, 

Since at Arcot, Plassey, elsewhere, he and death — the whole world knows — 

Came to somewhat closer quarters — " 

P. 38, 1. 1. The Tenth Legion of Caesar. See the Commen- 
taries. 

P. 38, 1. 1. The Old Guard of Napoleon. " The Imperial Guard 
was formed by Napoleon in 1804, and in 1809 was divided by him into 
the Old and Young Guard. As soldiers could not be enrolled in the 
former till they had served four campaigns in the line with distinc- 
tion, or from the preparatory corps of the Young Guard, it was an 
institution of the highest military policy. In 1812 the Imperial 
Guard numbered 56,000 men. It was dissolved by Louis XVIII. 
in 1815, and revived by Napoleon III. in 1854. — It took part in the 
Crimean War of 1855." — C. B. 

P. 39, 1. 6. Hosein, son of All. Notice the rhetorical effect of 
contrast in this pathetic episode, and the skill with which it leads up 
to an added impressiveness in the military story. 

P. 44, 1. 1. Captain BobadU. *'A braggart Captain in Ben 
Jonson's 'Every Man in his Humour.'" — C B. 

P. 44, 1. 20. The spirit of Dupleix. Note the felicitous inter- 
weaving of long and short sentences in the rest of this paragraph. 

P. 45, 1. 17. Crimps. ** * Crimps ' were kidnappers of men, who 
entrapped them, and kept them like fish in a stew till they could dis- 
pose of them to the army or navy ; Dutch krimpe, a stew where fish 
are kept till they are wanted, from krimpen, to contract. The root 
occurs in various modified forms in a very large number of English 



NOTES. 137 

words, e. g. cramp, rumple, scrample, crump-tooted or club-tooted, 
etc. ' Crimping ' or ' pressing ' was declared illegal by Parliament in 
1641; but the first war in which we can be certain that it was not 
resorted to was the Crimean War of 1854-5."— C. B. 

Page 46, Line 13. He married at this time, etc. It is amusing 
to note the summary way, so different from modern fashions, in which 
Macaulay dismisses his hero's private life. 

P. 46, 1. 24. There was then general peace. Macaulay's sum- 
maries are always worth study. 

P. 49, 1. 3. Swept away by the Reform Act of 1832. This 
Act, which Macaulay himself saw carried and helped to carry, always 
seemed to him one of the noblest triumphs of English history. The 
bill "settled forever the question which was so fiercely and so gravely 
debated during the discussions of the reform years, whether the Eng- 
lish constitution is or is not based upon a system of popular represen- 
tation." — Justin McCarthy. It abolished many rotten boroughs, 
and gave, for the first time, the right of representation in Parliament 
to such towns as Manchester and Leeds. 

P. 49, 1. 16. Sir Robert Walpole. See Macaulay's essays on 
"Horace Walpole's Letters," and on Lord Mahon's "War of the 
Succession in Spain." 

P. 51, 1. 13. Of the provinces, etc. This paragraph shows 
Macaulay's remarkable skill in the vivid presentation of the setting 
or background to his narrative. Natural products, art and com- 
merce, relation to the rest of the world and the characteristics of 
inhabitants, are all set before us with firm and concrete detail within 
the compass of a page. 

P. 53, 1. 17. Together with. A vulgar pleonasm. 

P. 56, 1. 1. It w^as the summer solstice. June 20, 1756. 

P. 56, 1. 16. UgoUno. "Count Ugolino della Gherardesca, podesta 
of Pisa, was starved to death with his children by Archbishop 
Euggieri, his fellow-conspirator, and afterwards his bitter enemy. 
Dante (Inferno, xxxiii.) represents him frozen with Ruggieri in a 
crevice of ice, gnawing his murderer's skull. For an accoimt of him 
and his death, see Napier's 'Florentine History,' i. 318, and Villani, 
vii. 128. Chaucer relates the story in his 'Monke's Tale,' following 
Dante's version closely enough. Ugolino tells Dante how his chil- 
dren died one after the other, and how he fondled their dead bodies 
* till hunger did what sorrow could not do,' " — C. B. 



138 MACAULAY. 

Page 56, Line 19. They cried for mercy, etc. " This passage is 
a perfect example of nervous incisive narrative. The words seem to 
come with short, quickened breath, through clenched teeth. Espe- 
cially noticeable, though the idea is taken from Orme, are the con- 
trasts in, ' At length the tumult died away in low gaspings and mean- 
ings. The day broke. The Nabob had slept off his debauch, and 
permitted the door to be opened.' Here the shortness of the sen- 
tences is entirely a gain." — C. B. 

P. 60, 1. 8. With this negotiation. This digression shows the 
entire self-confidence with which Macaulay explains to us the char- 
acter of a man whom others might find it somewhat hard to appre- 
hend. It is an interesting study to compare his luminous, direct, 
shallow method with the progressive faint suggestions through which 
Browning, in the poem already mentioned, hints to us a deeper if less 
symmetrical conception. Browning, however, treats of the military, 
rather than the statesmanlike side of Clive. 

P. 63, 1. 7. The Nabob, etc. From this point, the quick force 
of the narrative is in M^caulay's best manner. The very shortness 
of the sentences insures rapidity of movement over those pre- 
liminaries to the great battle-piece which might otherwise be tedious. 

P. 67, 1. 11. Before him lay a river, etc. It is hardly necessary 
to allude to Csesar and the Rubicon. 

P. 68, 1. 14. The furies of those, etc. " Compare, for instance, 
the ' Eumenides ' of the great trilogy of ^schylus. The Furies, or 
Eumenides, represented the avenging forces of the moral order of the 
world, and were believed never to rest till expiation had been made 
for crime. (See Schlegel's ' Dramatic Literature,' Lecture vi.)"— C. B. 

P. 68. 1. 18. At sunrise. "The morning of June 23. The num- 
bers given as those of the Nabob's army, differ much in the different 
accounts. Orme says 50,000 foot and 18,000 horse; Scrafton, in his 
'Reflections,' says 50,000 foot and 20,000 horse; while Clive himself 
('Life,' i. 263) says 35,000 foot and 15,000 horse. To estimate the 
numbers in a battle is always difficult, and nothing better than a 
rough approximation can ever be obtained. Macaulay's battle pieces 
are always fine examples of picturesque vigor. They are elaborated 
with great care ; and we find from his journal (' Life,' ii. 218) that he 
made a point of visiting the localities whenever this was possible. 
They form some of the most brilliant touches of his brilliant history." 
— C.B. 



NOTES. 139 

Page 73, Line 1. We should not think it necessary, etc. A 
typically English passage in its complacent and honorable pride of 
conscious integrity, its intentional abstinence from the ''romantic" 
or " high-flown, " and its successful defence of uprightness on even 
the lowest grounds. 

P. 73, 1. 17. Machiavelli. An Italian statesman of the sixteenth 
century, whose name is somewhat unfairly associated with the incul- 
cation of a cynical and devious policy. 

P. 73, 1. 18. Borgia. Caesar Borgia, patron of Machiavelli, one of the 
vilest characters of history. See Macaulay's essay on Machiavelli. 

P. 74, 1. 28. Rupees. An Indian silver coin, worth then about fifty 
cents. Since depreciated in value. 

P. 76, 1. 23. Florins and byzants. This one touch brings before 
lis all the past of India, and connects tt with some of the most glowing 
episodes of the past of Europe. Florins were first made by the Flor- 
entines, in the Middle Ages, and from them received their name. 
Byzants or bezants was "an ancient piece of gold coin, offered by the 
French kings at the mass of their consecration at Rheims, and called 
a Byzantine, as a coin of this description was first struck at Byzantium 
or Constantinople." Jamieson, " Scottish Dictionary." 

P. 76, 1. 24. Before any European ship, etc. " The power of 
Venice in the East dates from the Latin conquest of Constantinople, 
in which she took part, and obtained, in return for her services, many 
islands and important posts on the coast of Asia Minor, the starting- 
point of her great Eastern dominion." — C. B. 

P. 76, 1. 28. He accepted between two and three hundred 
thousand pounds. " The amount he accepted did not exceed six- 
teen lacs, or 160,000?. As one of the committee he also received 
28,000?. When in after times he was accused of rapacity, he indig- 
nantly replied, 'When I recollect entering the treasury of Moor- 
shedabad, with the heaps of gold and silver to the right hand and to 
the left, and these crowned with jewels, I stand astonished at my own 
moderation.' See also ' Life,' i. 313." — C. B. 

P. 78, 1. 7. There is no act, etc. No form of argument is more 
popularly effective — or, we may add, more likely to be fallacious — 
than that from analogy. Macaulay's rhetorical sweep of illustration 
gives him peculiar control over this form. 

P. 83, 1. 13. Quit-rent. A rent paid in money in discharge of 
services which would otherwise be due. 



140 MACAULAY. 

Page 84, Line 3. The fame of the Dutch. The power of the 
Dutch in India, though never equal to that of the French or English, 
was yet at one time very great. Their chief settlements were, how- 
ever, on Java, Sumatra and Ceylon, rather than on the mainland. 
The Dutch East India Company was formed early in the seventeenth 
century. 

P. 85, 1. 25. Clive sailed for England. The clearness of struc- 
ture of this essay is partly due to the marked periods into which the 
life of Clive naturally falls, but it also bears witness to Macaulay's 
skill in narration. The student should draw up an analysis of the 
essay, showing its component parts. 

P. 86, 1. 4. Pitt. William Pitt the elder, the " Great Commoner," 
1708-1778. See Macaulay's early essay on him. 

P. 86, 1. 7. That memorable period. 1759. It was the time of 
the Seven Fears' War and the conquest of Canada, as well as of the 
establishment of the British East Indian Empire. 

P. 86, 1. 12. There were then no reporters. Debates were 
nominally private till 1771, and reporters' galleries were not erected 
in the Houses of Parliament till 1834. 

P. 86, 1. 17. Wolfe. Died at the siege of Quebec, Sept. 13, 1859. 

P. 86, 1. 18. The Duke of Cumberland. An incompetent and 
cruel man, second son of George II. His one victory was over the 
Scots at Culloden. 

P. 86, 1. 22. Conway, Granby, Sackville. Generals in the 
Seven Years' War. 

P. 86, 1. 29. A foreign general. Prince Ferdinand of Bruns- 
wick. 

P. 88, 1. 17. George Grenville. " His ministry (1763-1765) was 
made chiefly remarkable for the recklessness displayed in his struggle 
with the press, and the shortsighted arrogance and folly which drove 
the American colonies into revolt." 

For a description of Grenville and his followers, see Burke's 
speech on American Taxation, p. 146, "Clarendon Press Series." 

P. 88, 1. 19. Wilkes. A demagogue indeed, of disgraceful private 
life, yet a man whose passion for agitation partly brought about three 
great advances in the English constitution. He helped to establish the 
freedom of the press and the publicity of the debates in Parliament, 
and he roused the people to the need of parliamentary reform. See 
Green's ** Short History," Chap. x. section II. 



NOTES. 141 

Page 88, Line 28, Your Majesty will have another vote. 

"There is reference here to the party formed by the kmg, with the 
object ' of restoring to the crown tliat absolute direction and control 
which Charles I. and James II. had been forced to relinquish, and 
from which George I. and George II. had quietly abstained.' Earl 
Russell, Preface to ' Bedford Corresp.' iii. p. xxix. See also * Junius,' 
April 22, 1771, and Burke's celebrated pamphlet on ' Present Discon- 
tents,' which is one long vigorous attack on the king's party." — C. B. 

P. 89, 1. 19. Orampound Election. Grampound was a pecul- 
iarly corrupt borough in Cornwall. Political bribery was, at this 
time, open and barefaced. 

P. 89, 1. 30. Enters the service. The Indian civil service is still 
in England a favorite resource for young men. It is now entered by 
competitive examination. 

P. 90, 1. 10. Sudder courts. Formerly courts of the highest civil 
and criminal jurisdiction for Hindus in all the presidencies. When 
Macaulay was in India, in 1836, he incurred the bitter enmity of the 
resident English by advocating that their law-cases, as well as those of 
the natives, should be tried in the Sudder courts. Of course this was 
the only equitable method. 

P. 90, 1. 25. Pigot. Lord Pigot, Governor of Madras. He amassed 
in India $2,000,000. 

P. 91, 1. 5. South Sea year. Early in the eighteenth century, 
the sudden increase of commerce aroused a passion for speculation. 
The South Sea company, ostensibly backed up by the unknown wealth 
of South America, and countenanced by government, inveigled thou- 
sands into trusting it with their funds : and in 1720 the accumulation 
of bubble companies resulted in a frightful collapse, which ruined all 
who had trusted to them. 

P. 92, 1. 25. But cruelty itself, etc. Nothing could be clearer or 
more effective than this terse epitome of a whole complex story of 
confusion and tyrannous misrule. The presentation of such a story 
necessitates a high use of the power of selection. Macaulay gives 
just enough to inform without wearying, and his style, usually cold, 
gains a warmer charm from the tone of subdued indignation. 

P. 94, 1. 15. The palanquin of the English traveller. See 
note, page 28, line 7. 

P. 95, 1. 18. The sepoys could only be kept, etc. " The first 
Sepoy mutiny took place about the middle of the year 1764, at Patna. 



142 MACAULAT. 

It was put down by Major Munro, who blew twenty men from the 
guns. At intervals other mutinies followed, generally just after a 
successful campaign, Avhen the troops were least amenable to reason." 
— C. B. 

Page 95, Line 29. Verres. CaiusVerres was praetor of Sicily, b.c. 
74-72. The oppression and rapine of which he was guilty, while in 
office, so offended the Sicilians that they brought an accusation 
against him before the Roman Senate. Cicero undertook the cause 
of the Sicilians, and pronounced the first of those celebrated orations 
(the second was not delivered) which are so well known in connection 
with his name. 

P. 95, 1. 29. Pizarro. The Spanish adventurer, greedy and cruel, 
who entered Peru in 1531, conquered the country, and massacred the 
king. He was himself assassinated in 1541. 

P. 98, 1. 16. Clive redeemed his pledge. This paragraph shows 
that Macaulay can work out an antithesis on a large scale as well 
as within the limits of a sentence. Study the correspondence of parts, 
before and after the dividing-line, — " But he had chosen the good 
part." 

P. 100, 1. 8. Sir Thomas Roe. See note, page 27, line 9. 

P. 100, 1. 30. Proconsuls, propraetors, procurators. Terms 
of the Roman republic. Their use in this side-allusion is another 
instance of Macaulay's felicitous habit of bringing all history near 
together, and so giving a wonderful sense of richness to his pages. 

P. 102, 1. 28. They little knew, etc. From this point to the end 
of the paragraph the succession of short sentences, even in length, 
equivalent in cadence, has a hard monotony of ring that is unen- 
durable. Why is Macaulay's style peculiarly open to this abuse? 

P. 104, 1. 11. Ricimer. Patrician of Rome, and virtual ruler of 
the Roman Empire in the fifth century. 

P. 104, 1. 12. Odoacer. Son of one of Attila's officers, first bar- 
barian king of Italy. Killed in 493 by his rival Theodoric, king of 
the Astrogoths, who succeeded him. 

P. 107, 1. 30. Nabobs. The tradition of the Nabobs lingered long. 
Thackeray tn " The Newcomes,'' made fun of it, and presented in an 
Anglo-Indian, Colonel Newcome, his noblest type of hero. " Tlie 
Nabob of books and tradition is a personage no longer to be found 
among us. He is neither as wealthy nor as wicked as the jaundiced 
monster of romances and comedies, who purchases the estates of 



NOTES. 143 

broken-down English gentlemen with rupees tortured out of bleeding 
rajahs, who smokes a hookah in public, and in private carries about 
a guilty conscience, diamonds of untold value, and a diseased liver." 
— The Newcomes, Chap. viii. 

Page 110, Line 1. Turcaret. The hero of a comedy written by 
Le Sage in 1709. He is an unprincipled and imbecile financier, duped 
by a lively baroness. 

P. 110, 1. 2. M. Jourdain. A character in Moliere's comedy, 
" Le Malade Imaginaire." 

P. 110, 1. 9. The Dilettante. The Club of dillettanti was estab- 
lished in 1734, with the object of introducing a taste for the fine 
arts into England. The word (Italian) means lover , but in common 
use has become a term of contempt synonymous with dabbler. 

P. 110, 1. 10. Maccaroni. Compare Yankee Doodle. The word in 
the last century signified a dandy. The derivation is uncertain. 

P. 110, 1. 16. Foote brought on the stage. In his comedy 
called "The Nabob." It is somewhat amusing to find Clive saying 
in defence of the Nabobs a short while before, '* If, in short, there has 
not yet been found one character amongst them sufficiently flagitious 
for Mr. Foote to exhibit in the theatre in the Haymarket." (Speech 
on East India Judicature Bill, March 30, 1772.) 

P. 110, 1. 23. Jaghires. Revenues derived from land. 

P. 110, 1. 23. Mackenzie. "Henry Mackenzie (1745-1831), essay- 
ist, novelist, and dramatist, was, by profession, a Scotch lawyer. 
His best-known writings are ' The Man of Feeling,' 'The Man of the 
World,' and a serial entitled ' The Lounger,' published at Edinburgh 
during 1785 and 1786. One of the names under which he wrote in the 
last mentioned was * Margery Mushroom.' See especially the letter 
in No. 36 of * The Lounger,' to which Macaulay refers." — C. B. 

P. 110, 1. 28. Cowper, in that lofty expostulation. 

"Hast thou, though suckled at fair Freedom's breast, 
Exported slavery to the conquered East? 
Pulled down the tyrants India served with dread, 
And raised thyself, a greater, in their stead? 
Gone thither armed and hungry, returned fuU, 
Fed from the richest veins of the Mogul, 
A despot big with power obtained by wealth, 
And that obtained by rapine and by stealth? 
With Asiatic vices stored thy mind, 
And left their virtues and thine own behind, 
And, having trucked tliy soul, brought home the fee, 
To tempt the poor to sell himself to thee? " 

Expostulation, 369-378. 



144 MACAULAY. 

"Compare also 'The Task/ ii. 1-285, and Lord Chatham's speech, 
Jamiaiy 22, 1770 : ' The riches of Asia have heen poured in upon us, 
and have brought with them not only Asiatic luxury, but, I fear, 
Asiatic principles of government.' ' — C. B. 

Page 111, Line 10. Such, as far as we can judge, etc. Compare 
Burke's " Reflections on the Revolution in France" (Clar. Press edi- 
tion, p. 53) where he says that the House of Commons will be able to 
preserve its greatness " as long as it can keep the breakers of law in 
India from becoming the makers of law in England." 

P. 112, 1. 7. Sir Matthew Mite. A character in Foote's play, 
" The Nabob." 

P. 113, h 11. William Huntington, who styled himself S. S. or 
Sinner Saved, would seem to have anticipated certain methods of 
the Salvation Army. He aroused much religious excitement in a 
certain class. 

P. 113, 1. 23. In the summer, etc. Another of the strong descrip- 
tive passages which alternate with admirable effect throughout the 
essay with political and military narrative. 

P. 115, 1. 10. Adam Smith. Founder of modern political economy, 
and author of the " Wealth of Nations," published in 1776. 

P. 116, 1. 15. The excitement. Analyze the climax. 

P. 117, 1. 6. Lord Rockingham. See Macaulay's " Essay on the 
Earl of Chatham." 

P. 119, 1. 3. He described in vivid language, etc. " In the 
speech (March 30, 1772) already quoted, his words are — ' Consider the 
situation in which the victory of Plassey placed me. A great prince 
was dependent on my pleasure ; an opulent city lay at my mercy; 
its richest bankers bid against each other for my smiles; I walked 
through vaults, which were thrown open to me alone, piled on either 
hand with gold and jewels.' (See Gleig's 'Life of Lord Clive,' p. 
297.)" — C. B. 

P. 119, 1. 27. Ordinary criminal justice. The logic of this para- 
graph is somewhat peculiar ; it shows, however, the easy and super- 
ficial good sense with which Macaulay always disposed of questions of 
casuistry. 

P. 120, 1. 16. Bruce, etc. " ' Every schoolboy knows' the crime of 
Bruce. The great blemish on the name of Maurice, Duke of Saxony 
(1521-1553), was his self-seeking and temporizing conduct before he 
espoused the cause of the Protestants, and drove Charles V. out of 



NOTES. 145 

Germany. On the character of William the Silent, historians differ. 
Motley pronounces him innocent. The massacre of Glencoe stained 
the name of William III. James Stuart, Earl of Murray, treated his 
sister and queen with a cold cruelty. Cosmo de Medici (1519-1574), 
Grand Duke of Tuscany, though he restored literature and the fine arts 
to Italy, had won his power at Florence hy torture and secret assas- 
sination. Henry of Navarre was as distinguished for the licentious- 
ness of his private life, and the versatility of his faith, as in his public 
acts he truly deserved the name of Great, Peter the Great (1672- 
1725), Czar of all the Russias, though of such wonderful ability in 
public life, was to the end a coarse, brutal savage, wallowing in 
drunkenness, and revelling in the torture of his victims. It is some- 
what surprising that Macaulay should have placed him in so honor- 
able a list, however great his achievements may have been." — C. B. 

Page 121, Line 3. Knight of the Bath. Constituted by Henry 
IV. in 1399, and conferred on forty-six esquires who had watched 
and bathed with him the night before his coronation. Revived by 
George I. See a fine description of Henry VII.'s chapel in Irving's 
" Sketch-Book." 

P. 121, 1. 27. Warren Hastings. See Macaulay's famous essay, 
which should by all means be read as a companion to the " Essay on 
Clive." 

P. 122, 1. 20. The previous question. An ingenious mode of 
avoiding a vote. 

P. 122, 1. 24. This motion. **That certain sums (enumerated) 
had been obtained by Lord Clive on the establishment of Meer Jaffier ; 
and that Lord Clive did at the same time render great and meritorious 
services to his country." 

P. 123, 1. 15. Iially. An Irish officer in the service of France. 
Governor of Pondicherry, 1756. Executed by order of the French 
Government, 1766. 

P. 123, 1. 27. Dr. Moore. Travelling physician to the Duke of 
Hamilton. 

P. 124, 1. 23. But he had now nothing to do. Browning com- 
pares Clive to a great castle, overrun in its decay by insolent intruders. 

" Reels that castle thunder-smitten, storm-dismantled? From without 
Scrambling up bv crack and crevice, every cockney prates about 
Towers — the heap he kicks now! turrets — just the measure of his cane! 
Will that do ? Observe moreover— (Same similitude again) — 



146 MACAULAT. 



Such a castle seldom crumbles by sheer stress of cannonade. 
'Tis when foes are foiled and fighting's finished that vile rains invade, 
Grass o'er-grows, o'er-grows till night-birds congregating find no holes 
Fit to build in like the topmost sockets made for banner -holes — 
So Clive crumbled slow in London, crashed at last." — 

Page 125, Line 8. It was said that he would sometimes, 

etc. The anecdote is taken from Boswell's " Life of Johnson," 
chap, xii., Dr. Robertson, the historian, telling it in a conversation 
with Johnson. 

P. 126, I. 19. Ghizni. Taken in July, 1839, the year before 
Macaulay's essay was published in the " Edinburgh Review." 

P. 126, 1. 22. Alexander, Cond^, and Charles XII. " Alexander 
the Great fought and won the battle of the Granicus (b.c. 336) at the 
age of twenty-two. Lysimachus was his great instru.ctor in the art of 
war. Prince Conde at the same age totally defeated the Spaniards at 
Rocroi, in 1643. Charles XII. of Sweden, at the age of eighteen 
heavily defeated the Russians at Narva in 1700. All these battles 
were decisive. Napoleon Buonaparte entered the army at the age of 
sixteen, and at the age of twenty began to distinguish himself. Four 
years later he commanded the artillery at the memorable siege of 
Toulon (1793). " — C. B. 

P. 127, 1. 14. Those who subdued Antiochus and Tigranes. 
" Antiochus Asiaticus, king of Syria, was conquered by Pompey in b.c. 
65. Tigranes, the ruler of Armenia, and son-in-law of Mithridates, was 
totally defeated by the Roman general Lucius Licinius Lucullus in 
B.C. 69, and three years later laid his crown at the feet of Pompey." 
— C. B. 

P. 128, 1. 9. Munro, Elphinstone, and Metcalfe. " Sir Thomas 
Munro (1760-1827) was governor of Madras in 1820. The Honorable 
Mountstuart Elphinstone (1778-1859), governor of Bombay (1819-1827), 
and historian, was one of the most celebrated of British Indian states- 
men. Lord Metcalf (1785-1846) took charge of a mission to the court 
of Lahore in 1808. In 1835 he acted provisionally as governor-general 
between Lord W. Bentinck's resignation and the arrival of Lord 
Auckland. He afterwards filled the posts of governor of Jamaica 
and governor-general of Canada." — C. B. 

P. 128, 1. 18. Lucullus and Trajan. Lucius Licinius Lucullus 
(B.C. 115-57), consul and commander, was celebrated like Clive both 
for his military talents and for his luxurious style of living. Marcus 



NOTES. 147 

Ulpms Trajanus (a.d. 25-117), the wisest and best of all the emperors 
of Rome, greatly distinguished himself as a general by his conquests 
of the Dacians and Parthians. He was no less distinguished in the 
civil works which he accomplished. 

Page 128, Line 20. Turgot. A patriotic and enlightened French 
minister, who endeavored, in the period shortly before the French 
Revolution, to carry 'out many moderate reforms. He incurred the 
enmity of the privileged classes, whose rights he endeavored to re- 
strict, and was consequently dismissed from office in 1776. 

P. 128, 1. 22. Lord William Bentinck. First governor-general 
of India, appointed in 1828. He won the warm regard of Lord 
Macaulay during the latter's Indian residence. The last sentence of 
the essay is placed on the pedestal of the statue erected in his honor 
in Calcutta. 

These final sentences roll themselves out with a sonorous ring and 
sweep that make them worthy to conclude an essay on such a man as 
Clive by such a man as Macaulay. 



